Pittston Gazette |
Previous | 1 of 4 | Next |
|
small (250x250 max)
medium (500x500 max)
Large
Extra Large
large ( > 500x500)
Full Resolution
All (PDF)
|
This page
All
|
Loading content ...
TUL^*Xl!VuT* N5Jo ( Oldest Newspaper in the Wvomlng Va ley. PITTSTON, LUZERNE CO., PA., FRIDAY. FEBRUARY 5, 1897. A Weekly Local and Family Journal. (Vl.OO PER TEAR 1 IN ADVANCK DaDo, "and Davenire, stepping tip to me, gives me a slap on the back like to have broke my spine and yells out: 'You're both good men. Trustworthiness means beer and cuddy stores aboard this ship and as much gold as shall fill each man a pocket handkerchief.' Then, calling to William, 'What,' says he. 'would you advise us to do with the boat?' As neither me nor William oared and as we didn't want the job of helping to hoist her aboard, I says, says I, 'It's a-going to be a fine night, and she'll lie all right astern if she's looked after.' William up and says the same." it off, and William &nd me being alone in the bark I runs aft for a glass." "An intelligent act!" still in sight?" culty in catching her. " hearts! One grieves to be the instrument of arresting so noble an undertaking and spoiling the most splendid adventuro in the annals of freebooting." TWE WRECK Off THE CWMYI^URr COOVRICHT. r896 BY TMf AUTwt)*. "When day broke he w;ts thick with a middling brecsso right off the inland and onr helm was amidships," answered the Dane. "Did it continue thick all day?" "It tnrned to rain and blew fresh, clearing at night, ami in the morning the horizon lay fair, but there was no island." A small ensign run aloft at the gaff end was signal enough to Hardy, who immediately threw tho brig in the wind, and the bark slowly floated on to her quarter. and William not to appear to observe him. He exclaimed in a low voioe to Harry, who bad lounged to the bead of the forecastle ladder on seeing the commander coming: "For the life that's In yoa both don't look down or seem to hsed me. Sing ont this." He dictated the words and Harry, who acted with an adroitness that was not to have been hoped for in William, shrieked in his high notes: of the boarder. Trollope was scaroely recognisable for a wonnd in his head. Pome hand had early laid his cheek open, and hie linen coat was drenched with blood and his left arm was crimson as he raised it. It was a wicked, miserable soene, lifted to no height of "You doru't tell the gen'man it waa me as arsted you to ran for a glass," said William. Nobody was to be seen at the fore end of the ship exoept Harry and William, who walked in the waist awaiting a signal from the commander. The Welleeley had already measured a wide space of water, and her intention of final farewell and departure could not be mistaken."There were several glasses and you fetched one, and you were two men. No matter," said the commander. "Did they get-ashore all right?" "Mr. Hardy," roared the commander, "I am going in chase of that boat in this ship. Send the arms chest and ammunition aboard. See to the cutlasses, Hardy." heroism—though the devil knows it lacked not that quality—because of .the character of the villains. Boldook, gazing a moment, never could have imagined anything to surpass that pioture of "I watched them," said the Dane, "make for their regular landing place and hand the gold oat. It was white beach where they landed, sheltered by a wing of land and a lot of wood, and bright green grass came growing down quite close to the glare of the grit. The chert* were very heavy, and it took hands to move two of 'em at a tirfe, and they never would go but a little distance, - then Deturn for the other chests, as if thty couldn't bear to leave 'em even that short way off. I watched till they was lost among the trees, but put me off that island and I'll give you the beatings of their track, though where they hid the gold I can't say." "Was it the intention of the men, do you think, sir, to recover the ship?" said the mate. "Tttey had the gold, their arms, plenty of provisions ashore. They had their boat (here. They might hope that the bark wduld go to pieces and carry these fellows down into silence with her." "Aye, aye, sir," shouted the man, as bo stood on the rail, holding by the vang, with the foot of his trousers trembling."Up helm!" said the commander. "We'll float down upon them, Trivett, without touching a brace. They shall not see a man bnt yourself and the helmsman aft." " We haven't had time yet to tell the story. Thai there man knowB nothing about you. But I'll go aft and give him the yarn while you wait if you likef" savage resistanoe. "Surrender!" he roared, rushing to- 1 ward the six or seven men who were swinging handspikes and cutlasses at the four. "We don't want your lives, but you're our prisoners—you must be our prisoners! Surrender, you scoun- i drels!" "Who was a-going to keep all on hoisting of that there longboat in and out?" said William. "I may have to deprive you for the time of the services of three of your men. Send six in the boat. You will have plenty to work the brig with. If I should run out of sight of you, make for Halloran island and heave to and wait for me." Something in this speech appeared to decide the six gentlemen. They talked together for a few minutes, looking earnestly at the ship. Every man then saw that his loaded weapon was bandy to his grasp when the six should leap as one for the chains. Weston and Shannon dipped their blades, and the boat approached the bark. The four who stood up idle intently watched the movements of the men who were visible on the vessel.The bark's bead slowly fell off toward the longboat. CHAPTER XXYI. THE SEAMEN'S STOBY. commander. "Was not the robbery ol the arms chest hint enough? Within an hour of that robbery I'd have had the whole of those fellows in irons and chance the issue." "That fired Trollope," continued the Dane—"beg pardon, lady," he exclaimed with an airy bow that fetched a rumble of laughter out of Boldook—"was for having her in boards. 'The only boat!' I heard him say. 'Suppose a sudden gale aud the likes of that' Most of 'em was opposed to him. They'd sorter taken a kind of hatred against the man. I went into the cuddy with a mess kid to get some supper from them, and they was quarreling and arguing with wine in their heads. By Peter, I liked it! When I returned with the kid, I says to William, 'If they keep all on they'll be massacreing of each other I' " "But wouldn't they fear," said the commander, "that abe'd fall in with a vessel and report the whole story?" "My dear," said the commander. Trivett started. "I think you had better go below, and pray be careful not to show yourself until we have polished off your old friends. To think, too," he continued, turning up his great, red face and rolling up hia honest eyes, "that all this should have nome about through you, love, whom they think of as drowned at the bottom of the sea." The night passed quietly. It was a bright moonlight night, aud the vessels, olothed in cold splendor, floated one in the wake of the other like two icebergs "They are nine anned, desperate men, sir," said Mr. Matthews, "and what's to be fallen in witli down here that's going to be of much help to recover a treasure against such determined devils as those fellows?" _A* ne mnnaerea ont tnoee woras a pistol wm fired behind him, and with a groan the unhappy Trollope let fall bia ontlaas. His blood soaked arm sank ■lowly, a piteous expression swam into his eyes as he turned them upon the oommander, death whitened him and made rery ghastly by contrast of hue "Right, sir," bawled Hardy. And a minute later all was hurry and bustle in the little vessel. But Mr. Matthews shook his head. And, indeed, if the commander had been over that desolate breast of breathing Wftten. In the morning it was very Use and the heave of the sea almost "Is she the longboat, do you think, Mr. Matthews?" said Miss Mansel, standing beside the mate, who was again viewiug the still distant object through the ship's glass. "May I say what I think?" cried the Dane, lifting his band and snapping his fingers. row, and when Commander Boldock "You'll find, sir," said Mr. Matthews to the commander, "that they've Stowed it in some cave or natural hollow which won't be hard to find. Observe that they took nothing to dig with to the island." "Are you going to me afore yon gives me some aoconn' want on deck be found the bark within pistol shot of his quarter. He hailed MM; and Mr. Matthews, the main rigging and, leaning off the shrouds with one hand on a ratline, made answer. He gently took the young lady by the band and led her to the companion. She went down the steps, but he remained in the batch hidden and gazing. Tho boat continued to hold 4. course for the Queen as though her occupants bad made up their minds. It was certain that tbey had by this time recognized her. Boldock, standing in tbe companionway, commanded her with his glass and was able to distinguish tbe faces of tbe men. They were six, as the boatswain had said. He who steered was a fine, handsome person, witb a large mustache. The powerful telescope brought them' within a hand reach of the commander, albeit the boat was still a mile off. One who sat near tbe steersman was a fellow of huge bulk. Hia immense figure dwarfed tbe man next bim. it of your- wound that bled in his head, and hC jnd his Mistaking on to hi* knees, next aooentuated the stretching his length. listening ears in When Weston saw this, he flnng his cutlass high in the air and folded his yarn in a fsw «"»•• He was immediately oollared by in his tea* * —wen and Mr. Hankey was wayl.. at the same instant knocked down. ? main chains, "U !t mnst u muBt h®-" Shannon iecame of her Panted« dropping his weapon and stick U * * * • J_j Ll « - . - "I allow," said the Dane, "that when they found the ffeip going or gone they fell to arguing as before as to what should be done, and as every man bad an opinion of bis own nothing was done," said Harry, with a triumphant nod. "Speak," said tbe commander. "I am certain of it. First of all, she ia a ship's boat The coincidence of a ship's boat being adrift down here would be too" extraordinary. Everything tallies. We are fast closing the island. She could have left it but a few hours, so to say. All is happening in small space of water, and you may take my word that Captain Benson's old friends are yonder.'' breaking the silenoe, ■elves?" sang out Trivett, hush in the ship to the tbe boat. He looked at Miss Mansel aa if be expected she would be struck with the word. "How romantic all this is!" exclaimed Miss Mansel. "Van shall bare our "Will yon do me the kindness," shouted Boldock, "to back your topsail and send your boat for the lady and me, aa I propose to do myself tbe pleasure to breakfaat with yon?" minutes," cried Davenire "And yet," exclaimed the commander, attempting in vain a poetical expression of countenance, "if you look at the sea around us, how bald you find it I How, then, should romance live in this barren plain which is as blank as the air it looks up at? But heave ahead with your yarn, my lads." The boat drew to th and, heedless as to what mendooa voioe. "Give "You've forgot to tell the gentlemen about tbe brigantine," said William. "Anyway, something's now done," said the mate dryly, "and that's your yarn, my lads, so you can go forward." "When they found," whipped in Harry, "that there waa no brigantine neither off nor at the island, they looked ailly to a man, one and all. They had fetohed glasses out of the passengers' cabins and worked away at the island and all around it, witb tbeir faces blank aa a sailor's dumpling. It was clear to most in their rage of resolution to repossess themselves of the ship, fired, too, with suspicion of their reception as every black soul of the six was, they sprang with tigerlike leaps into the chains and gained the deck in a dozen heart beats. ing his hands into his pockets and looking at the body of Trollop* He, too, was promptly seized, and the three men wen walked off to the hatch and dropped below. Forthwith tbe necessary maneuvers ware executed and Commander Boldock and bis betrothed were transferred to tbe bark. The boat was then hooked ou, tbe yards swung, and tbe vessels proceeded on tbeir course. "Amazing!" murmured tbe girl. "What will Commander Boldock do? How will he be able to catch them if tbey try to escape?" "What do you say to a decayed toothful of grog apiece for these fellows?" said tbe oommander. "Shall I take them into the cuddy and give it to tbem?" exclaimed Miss Mansel, starting up. She was eager the men should get it and thought tbe mate reluctant. He approached at that moment to make known bis intentions to Mr. Matthews and talked with one hand affectionately but lightly lying on Miss Mansel's shoulder. "Get the irons, Trivett!" shouted the commander. ' 'I suppose there are irons aboard this ship. Who killed that man?" And he pointed to the body of Trollope.! "It was the Dane, sir," answered one of the seamen of . the Queen. This poor fellow ooold scarcely speak, nearly the whole Of hie front teeth having been knocked out j The Dane proceeded: "They came off in the evening and feasted in the ouddy and made a night of it. They took care not to get drank, all 'cepting Bum. They mostly slept on deck and kept a sharp lookont. 'Twas for the brigantine, I allow. There was nothing else to watch for. Next day they all went ashore again and remained till sondown. I could see 'em on the hills among the trees walking about, looking through the spyglasses they'd taken. They oonldn't fear for the ship. The weather kept wonderful fine. Besides, they knew we onderstood dot if we slipped the boat 'ud be alongside afore we could have hoisted a rag of canvas, and then they'd have blowed onr brains ont." "Who's to go on, sir?" said William. Not a moment for breathing and for looking round was permitted. Roaring at the top of his voice, "Now, then, Mr. Matthews—now, then, my hearts—we must nab every one of these fellows; but don't hurt them if they offer no redistance," Bo]dock rushed out, flourishing his cutlass, followed by the mate and the whole body of seamen. "An ambush!" yelled Hankey, and Shannon sprang to the side as if be would jump overboard. Then he faced about, leveling his pistol. After Miss Mansel bad been supported over the side she hid her face and cried for some moments vehemently. The horror of recollection was too great Her heart was broken down by it Mr. Matthews arched bis eyebrows and sent • dry look at Trivett, the boatswain of the brig, wben the commander begun to aoothe the yonng lady. William and Harry came a little distance along tbe deck and stared. of them they was going to do nothing without a small vessel. I heard the man named Weston arguefying that the longboat was big and strong enough for them to go away in, gold, stores and all. for a coast, but the general feeling was that tbe brigantine ought to have been there. As she worn't there they didn't know what to do 'cept to wait for her, to give her a chanoe of turning up, either by cruising in this here vessel or by anchoring and all bands living ashore." "I will save yon that trouble, miss," said Mr. Matthews, with a smile of suspicion, and as he had no steward to call to he told them to follow him into the cuddy, and then he gave each man a wineglassfnl of rum. "We .must catch those fellows by a ruse," said he. "When we are armed, we will shift helm for the boat The bos'n Trivett must coax them on board by the statement I put into his mouth. You, sir, will keep out of sight with the men. William and the Dane will stand by to show themselves on the forecastle. The scoundrels must be on board before the rash is made. Then out you pour to the signal of my shout" Miss Mansel had again and again described the ten men to fioldook, and he immediately said to himself when the lenses perfectly magnified the forms and faces of the fellows to his vision, "That big devil is Oavenire, and the gentleman at the tiller is Captain Trollope," and a third man be instantly knew by recollection of the girl's description, a black faced, hung head man, who lay over the weather gunwale looking right into the oommander's eye under the shadow of his hat But Mr. Weston,1 who was sitting in the bows, Mr. Hankey beside him and Mr. Shannon, who was seated with his back against th«C mast, his arms folded, the oorreotest copy imaginable of a shipwrecked figure, Boldock was unable to identify from memory of Miss Mansel'ssketches. He took her hand and kissed it with ad- "The accursed little foreigner!" exolaimed the oommander, almost losing his roasted looks in the sudden paling heat at his wrath. "I will have him indioted for murder. He shall hang for itl What's beoome of the little dog?" he cried, looking round him. Then, his ■ight going to the three wounded seamen near the hatchway, he called to Mr. Matthews and told him to order some men to lift them and carry them mlrable courtcsy. in charge of the bark it is extremely probable that he would have allowed the ten gentlemen to work their will, as Benson had, and for Benson's reasons. While this was doiug Miss Mansel talked with Boldock about the story the men had given them. The brig was about three-quarters of a mile ahead. The bark was reduced to her topsails and oourses and spanker, and yet the brig's boatswain, who was keeping a lookout on the Queen's poop, found it difficult to stop the clipper from forging ahead of the clumsy wagon on the bow. Bright was that picture of morning in the Pacific. Clouds in breasts of satin jeweled in their skirts with the light of the sun were sailing over the pure, olue sky. The long, lazy Pacific heave was in the sea—that cradling heave which the whaleman knows as be doze* on the lookout at the masthead. There was nothing in sight except the brig. The ocean rippled merrily with the life and soirit of the breeze. The salt sang in the short wake and the white canvas sank in and out in breathing bosoms, flinging a refreshing coolness of eddying drafts down upon the hot decks. "She was overboard and was drowned," Mid the Dane, "and, by my knife, there she is!" They went on the poop. It was a beautiful. warm, irannv morning. The ocean nndalated in long, blue flashes of light from line to line, and a pleasant breeze was blowing, the speed of the two vessels being about five knots. The brig was rolling away oot on the bow, and when the oommander saw her his head rolled, too, in contemptuous sympathy. "The run and lines of a pudding dish," be mused. "She is fit to be a collier, and she brings all Sunderland into this beautiful scene. Suppose, now," said he to Mr. Matthews,' 'you call the two men aft" "Throw down your arms I We don't want to hart you, bnt we must take yon!" bawled the commander, making straight for CaldwelL "There's people," growled William, whom faoe was stupid with surprise and superstition and divers forecastle emotions as he surveyed the gtrl while she stood weeping a minute In the gangway, "as can't get drownded. My grandfather knew a Dutchman who was always a-falling overboard from vessels be belonged to when in dock. They'd bear the splash, sing out to fetch the drags, and, arter an hour or two of sweeping and oreeping, up 'ud come that blistered Dutchman, quite unconscious, of course, but with so much of life in him arter he was rubbed and dried his first words was always, 'Anoder half "Look alive with your yarn, my lad," said Matthews kindly. "If the rogues should refuse to come on board, sir?" said Matthews. He had heard all this before. But Harry was upon a job be enjoyed. He was talking before a girl The fine dark eyes of the young lady dwelt upon him, and Harry was one of those sailors who take great care to make it eight bells with the sun. "Our brains are not one barrel machines," answered the commander, his manner tinged with the contempt which at such a moment a naval officer might justly entertain for an ox faced merchant mate capable of asking useless questions. The six men fired a volley slap at tbe approaching seamen rushing headlong at tbem. "They certainly would have done that" said William, with a sudden distortion of face that at least proved the fellow's slow intelligence possessed some small capacity of realization. oaeefoliy forward to their beds and to aooompeny them, that he might report their condition. The first man they handled was a poor fellow wounded to death. They raised him. He was Tom, the poor sailor that had jumped overboard. He was a favorite in the forecastle despite his queer views and love of argument and taint of harmless madness. "Poor Tom!" said the men as they lifted him. He gave a single struggle and cried, with a dying roll of his eyes, "Mates, God's put the sun out!" It was to be a desperate, unfair fight; six enraged, entrapped men against overwhelming odds. Caldwell, blaok in the face with the devil that was in him, flashed his second shot at the commander. The ruffian missed his aim. He had been more fortnnate with Ur. Marten. His opponent's rnsh gave him no time for a third bullet, and be hnrled the heavy, clumsy weapon—a deadly missile—with the fall strength of his nervous arm at Boldock's head. The pistol struck the uplifted cutlass and snapper the blade short off as though "Aye, aye, sir," hissed he with his rapid utterance and forged ahead thus: He withdrew his hand from Miss Mansel's shoulder and stepped over to Trivett, the boatswain of the brig, whom be addressed in a very earnest, decisive manner, talking with plenty of theatrical gestures, while he frequently looked in the direction of the boat. When he had done with the boatswain, whose faoe glowed with a genial intelligence of his commander's meaning, he bailed the forecastle, and William and Harry came aft. Them also be addressed in firm tones and dramatic gestures. "Next day the gents kept quiet They did nothing but smoke their pipes, watch the sea for the brigantine and stare at the island. Me and William kept forward, wondering bow it was going to end. It was nioe weather, but they was loonatics to let the longboat lie afloat Had they lost her they'd have been forced to use the ship to carry the gold to a coast with, and without a boat aboard we stood all hands to have been drowned." "It grew plain to me and William," continued Harry, "that them gents meant to give the brig antine a good chance, the ship lying at anchor and themselves spending the days ashore along with their gold. Da venire asked William afore going into the boat one morning to let go a second anchor if sarcumstances obliged. William said yes, he'd do that to save the ship for his own life's sake." "Down helm, now, Trivett," said he, after a long silence, during which the boat had drawn almost within musket shot of the bark's bow. Tbe sun did not yet render an awning necessary. The young lady was shaded by her parasol, and she sat next to the oommander, and Matthews stood beside them, while William and Harry, the Dane, in respeotful sea postures related their yarn. Suddenly the boat dropped her lugsail and rocked • her naked mast with the whole six men in her standing up staring under the sharp of their hands, all in attitudes of debating and considering. pint*" The other two were quickly taken "Good!" said little Harry, grinning with all his teeth. "I tell you what I have seen a ghost By Peter, she is a fine girll Look bow she stands up at the aide at that old cock with the red steak faoe. By Peter, there was business to be done there \ uDserve me, ttni. x outer's a splicing job." .. , , •hro" forward. ' ' .... n .n The commander stood beside the bodj 1^7Jm 04 Trollope, (rasing down at the dead 55. fCKM- He lay sideways. The wound was hidden, and Boldock saw a handsome wo men gentiemMj lying death. He lay a for a few min- J"7 ®g?reuof " man' "fd thought that heat sometime In his }_ had met him. "I may recall you . ?® "? / eomeof them days," mused thecom. t ™ mander, with the velocity of thought, . . r® standing for a minute beside the body, stronger or tfte .CTht gentleman is certain '.ife at least *" . . —no doubt an omoer in the army. A ™ base end, an Ignoble end! What did you it * n u do with thorn qualities with which you ■»*■* *»• ■ respectable, even a *hini,18. figure upon this brief vstage? ighted up 'ogive us all I Why did the Dane A his eye* kill this man?" C" he yelled. Ha lifted his wide straw hat to wipe *i with them *weat 'rom streaming face, then and that look from the body, calling to a coubrow. The Ple °* h*»d» to carry it ,to. a foremost nim, aiid now «»dC*y cabin. Trirett came up to him. with a rope to "A ■h«rP boeinees," said the oom- Mansel stood a rnander' "*°d far bloodier than I wanted."a carrot Dropping the nsel William began: "The day afore we made the island I showed the gents how to get the anchors over the bows. Next day we made tbe land. There was a whole swamp of jawing. Every man had his own opinion. I could see that him they called Trollope was no longer to boss the job, though I allowed he was the best of the gang, the properest to head that there tidy little procession." "And you expect to be off the island tomorrow?" said Miss Mansel. "Go now on to the fok'sle, William, and you, Harry, and be steady with your yarn if they should hail you." dock, who was now in thi "I must interrupt," said Mr. Matthews. "When the boat went ashore with the gold, how deep did.she float?" ing fury, received Caldwell "Why didn't yon advise them to lift the boat aboard?'' said the commander. ' 'By tomorrow night I do, my love, certainly, clipped as our plumes are, if this breeze keeps on blowing." "Do you understand mo?" he said. The two seamen ascended the forecastle ladder and showed themselves. at him, and in a breath "She showed a side like a plank, sir," answered William. "She was sunk so deep when the nine of the gents got in on top of the chests that I allow it settled their resolution then and there to give the brigantine a good long chance and to keep the ship at anchor to use by and by if that there Saunders, as I'd hear them call him, didn't tarn up." "Just think I do, sir," answered the Dane, whose face was wrecked with a grin. In fact the little sailor saw much to amuse him in Commander Boldock's appearance, and though on the eve of a business that might cost him his life this wasp of a man oould laugh. The Danes are no cowards. Cowards I More gallant, heroic hearted people than Nelson's "brothers of the English" you shall not find, though the world be searched for them. were locked. Miss Mansel, drying her tears with one hand, the other being clasped by the oommander, was conducted by her sweetheart and Mr. Matthews into the cuddy. She then broke away and vanished in her cabin. "I never thought of the drowning part till afterward, sir." "Suppose the men are ashore? It will bo horribly exciting. They are all armed. What will you do?" said the girl, gazing with the concern of her heart in her agreeable eyes as she fixed them upon the commander's faoe. "Harry, the Dane, ahoy I" roared the thunderous voice of Davenire. "An hour ago we saw that that vessel was our bark. Was it the heavy swell carried you off?" It was a fierce wrestle utes. No man came to the help. Caldwell's intention "It was an easier job," said the oommander, speaking in deep notes and oomplainingly, "to loaf on the fok'sle bead with a pipe in your mouth than to run aloft with a block or to help with a drag on a tackle." dock under and bo Strang' stamp of foot or pressure "Aye, sir," answered the Dane, with a flourish of bis hand. clear. He was by far the "A very handsome little interior," ■aid the commander, straddling at the foot of the table, his hands behind him, and turning his crimson face a boat in admiration, as though he was in a picture gallery. "I hope jou found your effects intact, sir7" "Was be?" hissed Harry softly and fiercely. "We will anchor and go ashore and make the men prisoner*, then look for the gold. And it, stow it and sail away for Sydney," answered Boldock in a certain large, comfortable manner he wax sometimes oaed to pat on after his third glass of hot rum and water. for his liberty, and they two, fighting if not for his "Who are those people aft here?" "Two sailors put aboard us by yonder whaler, sir," answered the Dana rolled and gnashed their "One at a time, and William now jockeys, the yardarm," said the commander."That's about the time of day, sir, with the fok'sle of the red flag in these times," exclaimed Mr. Matthews; "a pipe and a long loaf at the windlass and then a walk aft to ordor the captain to up hellnm for home, as everything's wrong with the blooming old hooker." "They'll never attempt to oarry away the gold in the boat then?" said Matthews to the oommander. sweated, the commander "Don't vou tell anr lies!" roared Caldweii. "That brig's no whaler." well muttering low curses and twisted, till all at ono» "They agreed to sail close in to the island and go ashore in the longboat and take a look around them," continued William. "They had no confidence in one another, and they must all go togetner or remain togetner, ana wnerever the gold was there they all must blooming well be, begging pardon," said the man, touching his forehead in his slow, merchant service way. "They sailed in till they got 17 fadom; then all the sails were furled and the anchor let go. There was nine of 'em." "No." "We'll be armed, I suppose,sir?" said William, to whom the humor of this passage of hifl life appealed but faintly. relaxed and a look of horror "But I always felt it I knew that boat's capacity. Nine men! They'd need to go flush with stores. They'd see to that. They're not gentlemen to go afloat with a view to perishing of thirst anyhow," said Mr. Matthews. "They'll not trust the treasure in her, and unless the brigantine has turned up sinoe the ship was blown or rather rolled away from the island the gold's ashore and ready for us to restow." "Ho, the boat ahoy!" shouted the boatswain, Trivett, from the head of the poop ladder. " Begging your pardon, if you'll come alongside, I'll tell you she is a whaler and give you her master's name and the quSLtity of oil she's got aboard and where she hails from." bis face with the roanding "Intact to a shilling, I am happy to my," said Mr. Matthews. "What was that extraordinary sea which liberated the ships?" said Miss Mansel after a pause, daring which Mr. Matthews bad rejoined tbem. "Certainly," exclaimed Boldock. "O Christ! Look at her Crash! Down he wen words in his evil month This had besn said while the boat of the brig had been coming to the bark with the arms ohest. The oars swept the lubberly fabric alongside. The ohest was promptly got anoara aiong witu -cue brig's store of cutlasses and a quantity of powder and shot for the pistols and muskets. Three of the men re-entered the boat and returned to the brig, whioh forthwith proceeded on her course to Halloran island in obedience to certain instructions which had been dispatched by the commander to Hardy. Boldock's next act was to order the quarter boat out of which the mate and the five seamen had been rescued to be lowered by the shackles as she swung at the davits that she might be the longboat, but as she hit the ship's weather •ride at every heave of the swell, she was lowered into the water and left to float at her painter. "Very airy and cheerfnl after the oabin of the brig,'' said fioldock, breathing deep. "Any damage?" William's face rippled with enjoyment of the mate's plain speaking. A sailor relishes truth about his calling when applied to another and William understood that the mate's remarks were meant for the Dane. of horror on bis hanging "What would you call it?" said the commander, turning Btiffly in his chair to look ap at the mate. commander was on top of "They pillaged some of the passengers' cabins, but you'll find Mint Mantel hasn't suffered. They bad done their worst with her. They'd do no mora " Trivett rushed to his side "All that's devilish easy to invent," shouted Davenire. "Are you four men the only people in that ship?" bind the prisoner. Miss little way in the caddy, quite visible through the door, watohing the fight "An earthquake, I should say, sir." He then went on to the lit- "On you go!" said the commander, who was growing impatient "Pay out I Pay out I" "I can imagine nothing else,"observed Boldock. "We must have been within the area of any storm that oould have set such a swell iu motion and therefore have felt it" "Back, Margaret, back I" panted the commander, but in an andible voioe, to tbe girl, who shrieked: "He is Caldwell! He is the man whose name was on the handkerchief!" And tbns speaking, she fled to the after end of the caddy. tlaoombat had bean fieroe arm long at leaat for numbers bo am The son was high, the wind small sea floated before the faint nc wind in a breast of shivering satii. to where the dim, pearly square of brig's canvas took the eye. The had been held to the wind straggle, and the longboat lay quarter of » mile distant on her tar. Miss Hansel stood beside the w "The bur-lud-dy villains!" exclaimed the oommander, making the sentence tremendous by force of emphasis and slowness of delivery. "How came you to be rolled off the island, as I've heard you express it?" said Boldock. "Boat ahoy!" shouted Trivett. "Won't yoa draw a little closer, so that we can talk? What are you afraid of? I thought yoa were castaway men and bore down to pick you up." "Nine!" exclaimed Miss Mansel. "I forgot to mention," said Mr. Matthews, "there had been a duel." "On the third morning, it being fine, still weather," continued Harry, "a sail showed in the south. The sight drove the gents mad. They rushed aloft with their glasses, and them that hadn't glasses yelled to the others for news. By Peter, then, it was a brigantine as sure as it was blue water she floated on. She was heading west and glided on. The gents swore she'd missed the island, and I heard the soowbanker Trollope tell Davenire that it was Saunders groping for it, and that he must be helped. What followed? We up anchor, made sail and stood out in chase. It was some hours before we drawed near enough to distinguish the oraft, and then some of the gents who knew the Rival says it wasn't her, and some was for speaking the brigantine and taking their chance of what might follow. This led to a quarrel between Captain Trollope—as they called him, but he ain't no captain—and that there Davenire, and blowed if they didn't square up and go for each other. It was a beautiful sight to these eyes," cried the Dane in sudden fury, making passionate gestures as he spoke, ' 'for I was sure the giant dot was good for a traveling cage in my country would kill the other. But the . the northerly down the nark luring the abcmt a quar- "Thoae two men," continued the mate, "tell a queer yarn of the fellows' doings at the island. Will you have them aft at once, or wait till after breakfast?" "Who fought?" asked the girL "Mr. Masters and Mr. Caldwell," answered William. The Dane and William looked at each other, and William spoke. "It's not the first time," said Mr. Matthews, "that I've heard of these unnatural agitations. My father had command of a south seaman, and he used to tell of pioking up the survivors of the crew of a vessel that had gone down bodily, all standing in just such another commotion as those two men have described. It lasted long, too, as though the rollers were the work of one marine spasm after another." "It was shortly afore sundown four days ago, with the roastingest hot look in the face of the west that ever I took notioe of in all my time. The gents had been ashore all day and was still ashore. They seemed sick and tired of keeping • lookout for the brigantine and had left the vessel without taking any glasses with them. So I reckoned from the heap that lay on the cuddy table. We lay about a mile out, and by looking through a talnarmra t ™CnW «oe 'em ulain. sitting, walking about, talking. I was constantly a-watching of 'em in this way, reckoning I'd light on where they'd hid the gold." On this the six gentlemen held a short consultation, often directing their eyes at the bark with many marks of suspicion in their looks and gesture. Then Weston threw an oar over on one side aud Shannon an oar over on the other, and to a very slow beat of blade—every face, the rowers' included, turned toward the Queen—the boat warily approached uutil she was abeam, within comfortable talking distanoe. "So we've got Miss Mansel's would be murderer here, have we?" gasped (he commander, who with Trivett waa now kneeling upon the writhing form. "Fraphim handsomely, Trivett It'll be round the neck when we get him ashore, I expect. Tant as yon pleaw." "Caldwell shot Masters through the heart, this man tells me," said the mate, "and the body was flung overboard." "We'll breakfast first," said the commander, who was exceedingly hungry. "I am one of those unfortunate people Who can't shift without ballast." "May they all serve each other so!" exclaimed the commander, with a pious motion of his eyeballs. 'heel watching her. When Boldock approached, the tuned, and, seeing him, tan to meet him. "Are yon hnrt?" she cried. "Not to the extent of a hair of my head, my dear," he answered. "How the wretches fired t It was a perfect storm of shooting. I listened in the enddy, shivering. If one ball had hit yon"— They made the rounds of the cabins. The oommander found Bioch to say on what he beheld. The main hatch covers were then lifted, and they entered the bold, where for some time on their kneta and hands they remained, viewing the wreck of the massive casing in which the gold bad been stored. When they returned on deck, a very good sea breakfast bad been served by a Jack of the brig, one of those useful seamen who can cook and wait as well as hand and steer. They bound his arms behind him, they bound his legs with the rwift but likewise with the sore hand of seamanship, and then, as though he bad been a newly slaughtered pig, they dragged him to the little steerage batch under the break of the poop and dropped him throngh it, quivering, cursing, howling, bat helpless as a man hanging at a yard arm. Miss Mansel was looking away to sea. She so held her parasol that Boldock could not have seen her just then had he wanted to look at her. She was blushing, and yet her faoe wore a slight look of distress. But before Boldock could bid William proceed she had rallied and the parasol was in ita former plaoe. "Everything's possible at sea," aaid the oommander. The arms chest was opened on the quarter deck and the crew summoned aft when pistols and cutlasses were immediately served out. Just as be prouounoed these words the figure of a man, dwarfed by distanoe, conld be seen franctically gesticulating on the taffrail of the brig. A binocular glass lay upon the skylight, aud the commander with wonderful agility jumped for it "Wouldn't that brig help you to more than two men?" shouted Trollope to the forecastle. "If she's a whaler, she's full hauded." "You'll keep off the forecastle out of sight men, all but William and Henry there. Mr. Matthews will be in oharge of you. When I roar out, you'll run out Down with 'em if they resist, even if it comes to your splitting them in halves; otherwise shed no more blood than you can help. I want to carw those gentlemen sound in limb and wind and appetite to Sydney. Do you understand me? You'll shed no more blood than is to be helped," the commander said, gazing with stern significance at the little Dane, whose countenance showed darkly in the crowd of sailors with evil intentions and the passion of revenge. "Remove his cutlass and give him a handspike, Mr. Matthews," he continued, irritated by the mutinous, piratio scowl of the Dane, differing extraordinarily from his recent face of ruining merriment "We don't want to approach this business in the spirit of murder." "He'll explain, sir," replied Harry, pointing at Trivett on the poop. "But bow was the ship rolled off, man?" said the oommander. "It is pleasant to be thought of in this way. It is a novel sensation to me. There's been nobody to think of me, fair or foul, since my mother died." "They got the boat over in the afternoon, and the nine gents went ashore in her," said William. "They were armed. I seed some of them inspecting their revolvers when they was in the boat. Before they put off Davenire, the big chap with the silver chain, steps up to me and 'Arry 'ere and says: 'We'ro going to leave you in charge of the ship, and we have confidence in you. If you should attempt to play false, by'— and here he swore an oath long as a bowline all about the Etarnal, and so help him," said William, looking with his slow gaze into the commander's wide expanse of countenanoe, " 'we'll secure the pair of you to that mast there and blow your —bum—hum—brains out' " "She's the Irish Girl of Hall, 16 months oat. She fell in with this vessel this morning " cried Trivett who fairly looked the character of the rough whaling mate or superior spouter's seaman no was personating as ne siouu in a sailor's careless attitude, a foot in a coil of rope, a hand on a backstay, dressed in a sleeved waistcoat, well worn oloth breeches and a greasy, gray, felt hat "Captain Button could only spare us two men, but seeing your boat coming along he counted on my finding in you * e extray hands we require to navigate this beautiful andwaluable ship, whioh I tell yoa is flush to the hatches with wool." The struggle, however, was not yet over. The five had fought like furies. They snapped their revolvers to right and left and hurled them as Caldwell bad at the heads of the seamen when the chambers were empty. Three sailors lay wounded from the discharge of those firearms, while the gentlemen themselves remained unhurt. The giant Davenire had wrenched a handspike from the hand of a man, and, thus armed, he rushed upon Mr. Matthews. The worthy mate had a heart of oak, but he was new to this sort of business and could not but spring back from this onslaught of that great figure, terrible with the heavy capstan bar he swung. In another moment the poor fellow would never have needed to sign articles any more for a living. He was saved by Davenire's foot in his white, blind heat striking the revolver that Caldwell had hurled at the commander. It tripped.him, and he was flung. He fell headiong, with all his own aud the weight of the massive beam he grasped. Then the mate, yelling for help, leaped upon him. Three seamen tumbled upon the prostrate giant, yet it took the united strength of those four men to secure the herculean Mr. Mark Davenire. At every wrestling heave and furious motion of his muscular mass of bcdy he slung one or another, making them leap as a man springs from the side of a capsized boat. But numbers must prevail. Matthews gripped him with both hands by the throat and was strangling him, while the seamen were making a helpless bale of the huge robber by turn upon turn of rope round his arms and body and legs. "All of a sudden, while I was looking westward at the flare there and the light upon the water, I saw the sea iu trouble and a-moving. It bad been calm down to this, a nice air of wind out of the south and a small natural heave of swelL The trouble in that water came along in seas." "It's Hardy," he cried. "He's pointing on oar lee beam." "That's altered," said Miss Mansel. Aa the oommander and bis companion entered the cuddy the door of Miss Mansel'a oabin was opened and the young lady made her appearance. Boldock started. He could haTdly credit bis light He had been so used to see Miss Manael in her dressing gown that, now abe waa prettily dressed in serge trimmed as gayly as a yachting costume, be scarcely recognized her. She bad put on a hat, a charming bat, with an ostrich feather coiled round it. The gentlemen rogues had left her cabin untouched, All her toilet conveniences remained, and she bad used them to her inexpressible refreshment and to the distinct Improvement of her charms. So there stood before the commander a w41 dressed, well shaped young lady, with fine, dark, pensive eyes and blushing cheeks and wbite teeth showing as she amiled, and she was to be his wife. "Good heavens!" he ejaculated, in the impulse of his surprise and delight He took bet band, and, raising it to his Hps, kissed it with admirable courtesy, then introduced her to Mr. Matthews as his betrothed. "Sail ho!" shouted a voice on the Queen's forecastla She was about to ask after the prisoners. Some men came along to enter the quarter boat which lay floating in the water alongside and interrupted her. One was Harry the Dane. He looked with a soared though brilliant gaze at the commander and tumbled quiokly into the missen chains before the rest. Boldook did not address him. He called to one of the others: "The longboat, sir, by thunder!" yelled Mr. Matthews, looking through the ship's telescope. Miss Mansel shrieked with excitement"Rollers, then," exolaimed William. "We was riding head on, and the first bowed us cathead under. She rose roaring on top of the next lump of brine with a leap that knocked me down and parted the cable. In the shindy and fear I didn't know the cable was gone. The island was a sight. It was smoking with salt. The rollers flung themselves hundreds of feet high into the air in white water, whioh fell with a noise like bolts of thunder upon a mountain. That curve of land which protected the 'arbor smoked, too, I can tell you," said William, speaking a little fast with some excitement of memory and some enjoyment of his own powers of narration. "It was raging white water in the 'arbor itself, bat all so thick with the mist of spray, though now it was blowing but a light wind, that I could not see what the men were doing of. 1 reckoned, however, that their first idea would be to haul the boat high and dry to save her. There was nine, and it was to be done quickly among 'em. I sings out 'Shall wo let go the second anchor, 'Arry?' That was arter I saw we was adrift, and he yelled oat, 'It 'ud never hold her in this sea. Let her go. It's our chance of getting away, Bill, without risking our lives,' and I don't believe myself that a second a-ichor would dare held the ship. I never saw such a swell, never heard of the like of it. It was got up like magic. Every blow seemed to drive the ship by her own length astern, leaving her sunk in a walley, aud to clear the land we hoisted the fore topmast staysail. This coaxed her head off, but it was wonderful she didn't founder in the trough afore she i-ame staru on, by which time the island was on the quarter, the sun going down and darkness a-settling over the world." "Rollers," said the Dane. skunk"— CHAPTER XXVIL THE FIGHT. "This man is not fit to be trusted wUh a storv." interrupted the commauder. "Piok up the yarn, you, now." Away far down on the edge of the sea glowed a point of light. In the binocular glass the commander leveled it Hhone as the topmost sail of a ship whose keel was sunk to the height of her topgallant yards behind the horiison, but in the ship's powerful telescope that faroff dash of luster hang near and brilliant, a large lugsail and a gunwalo of ship's boat under it, with a row of dots as of heads of men glimmering in the warm transparency between sea and sky. "Any of you men injured?" "None of us here, sir. There's a man dead in the fok'sle." William, wiping a little tobacoo juice from bia lips, said: "Hal" groaned Boldook. "The two gents had a bit of a stand up affair. T'others interfered. One got knocked down. Barn was his name—a gent,"said William, pointing, "wbo was all day long a-drinking bottled beer nnder tbat there skylight. I reckoned upon some shooting, like as afore, bat they was too knowing for that sort of larking this time. There was a great deal of talk and yells to the big ohap that be should apologize, and I see 'em shake hands arter they'd fonnd oat that the brigantine wasn't the vessel they wanted. We anchored and furled everything and lay for three days doing nothing. Me and ' Arry keeping forward without any excuse to go aft couldn't get to hear what was to be done. One day the gents came off the island with a skull they'd picked up, with a hole in it iiud a bird's nest inside. Think of hatching of ideaft after death, the gent Weston said, and there was a great laugh. They made a deal of this skull, then chucked him overboard. Once when I went into the cuddy to ask for something to eat Captain Trollope, who sat at table with three or four others, looked at me hard. I thought he'd speak to mo alone afterward. I'll swear that gent meant treachery to his mates, and it 'ud have come to a scheme with him and wo might have saved the ship and the gold hadn't they on a sudden formed u resolution. They loaded the longboat with cabin stores and went ashore with her. Next day they put the gold into the boat and took it away." "How long have you been aboard?" howled Caldwell, with bin hand at the side of his mouth. The seamen dropped over the side. "So! That was their language. Quite like old times!" exclaimed the oommander. "Fire away!" "It was that sooundrel Dane who killed your friend Trollope, Margaret" "I will shoot him through the brainR all the same!" hissed Harry to a seaman as the body of them went forward. "Give me your pistol, Joe. S'elp me, Cott, you shall have $20 out of my pay for the use of it when we gets wherever we're a-going!" "Not yet had time to take • look around," answered Trivett "This here ship wants men. There's no going below aboard 800 ton when there's only fower to a crew. Ain't that a sextant case in your starn sheets?" "Is Trollope dead?" she exclaimed. "When they was gone"— began Harry, who had been moving impatiently on either leg, darting frequent looks nt Miss Mansel with that sort of smirking, self satisfied air which a certain type of conceited sailors will pat on in the presence of women, though they should be ladies mast high above their condition. "Killed by a dirty little mutinous foreigner, in absolute disobedienoe to my orders. I will see how he 1b to be punished for it I doubt if there is any law that under the oircumstanoes will enable me to get at the scoundrel" Yes, it was a sextant ease and inside it was a sextant that had belonged to the late Captain Benson. When the longboat bad gone ashore with stores, the meu carried with tbem this sextant, a boat's compass and a chart of the south Pacific, but they had not thought of losing the bark or surely they would have provided themselves with one or more of the glasses on board, and at least one of the ship's chronometers. "It's this ship's longboat" exclaimed Mr. Matthews, in a voice strained by all sorts of sensations into a high note. "I will swear to her, distant as she is." The commander went on to the poop with acutlass strapped round his waist and a loaded pistol in his pocket leaving the mate in charge of the men for- "Captain Trollope dead I" murmured the girl "Are others of them killed?" "I said one at a time," thundered Boldock. "All unhurt in irons in the steerage." "Very well," said the commander, coolly putting down the binocular glass. All excitement was gone from him. His nostrils were large; determination had fixed the expression of his faca The spirit of roast beef had started, but not from its gravo, in that sturdy, resolved fhnpe. He said, letting fall his intoning tricks of speech, talking indeed rather rapidly, with a pulse of decision, however, in every word: They stood watcniug me mi obliging the lougboat to tbe ship, and they talked of the fight, and Miss Mansel asked tbe oommander if he saw the look on Caldwell's faoe when he saw her? "I had thought as much, sir," said the mate, with one of those dry, nervous ■miles which twist the month toward the cheek. "I heartily congratulate yon both," and be bowed with the grace of a sailor bending at the handle of a pump. Harry's jaw tell. William went on after a leisurely look around the horizon, as though ho scanned the sea for thought and words. "When we was left alone, 'Arry here was for slipping. 'Yes,' I says, says I, 'and git our brains blowedont* He says: 'They'll think the chain parted. What do they know about cables?' Well.it wasn't done. This 'ere little 'Arry had been already knocked about till be was nigh killed by tbat there Trollope." "It was Dot a favorable moment for observation," said the commander. "I tripped him on a sadden rather easily, I thought, and fell with him and on him. He ouries the aspect of a picked charaoter. The handkerchief convicts him as one of them. I should like to know who was the other." "If that's ft sextant," continued Trirett, bawling down at the boat tbat was right abreast of the ship, sinking and falling, and rocking her naked mast that stood up like a lightning withered pine while Mr. Shannon and Mr. Weston kept their oars overboard, scarce paddling, however, to hold their little fabric in position, "there'll be a navigator among you, and"— He changed his manner and feigning a sudden air of suspicion with suoh admirable dexterity as would have delighted the commander had he been watching the fellow he shouted: "But what are you and where do you come from? What ship did you belong to? You've got the looks of passengers. I should like to hear your yarn aforo you come aboard." No mare was said on the subject, and ftheyaat down to breakfast. The talk naturally concerned the robbery, the proceedings of the thieves, the chances of capturing them and recovering the gold. "There is nothing more probable than that she should prove the longboat We aro within, comparatively speaking, a few boars' sail of the island. If that boat left it yesterday and headed north, as she appears to be doing, she was almost certain to fall in with us. But for all that, Mr. Matthews, it is a stroke of fortune of which we must be able to give a good account Sir, you will give me leave to take command of this vessel?"There was no more noise of firearms after Davenire was secured. Troliope, Weston, Shannon and Hankey, with their backs against the bulwarks in the gangway, were making a magnificent stand when the commander, having dropped Mr. Caldwell into the steerage, looked round from the hatchway at the quarter deck scene of struggle. Davenire was even then being bonnd, and the mate knelt upon him with his handn upon bis throat. You might have heard the groans of the wounded men above the cries and curses of the seamen as they hacked and hewed at the four gentlemen against the bulwarks, not wishing to shoot them and not able to subdue them. All four men bad managed lo wrench cutlasses out of the grasp of their opponents, and they made a lightning in the air with these weapons as they struck in return, lunging and parvying, or letting drive the slinging bow* The Dane, in an agony of impatience and recollection, struck his hip a slap tbat sounded like the report of a pistol. "It is like a dream," said the girl. "Yet I oould swear that the other was Mr. Davenire." "I must have those naggets, Margaret," Boldock said, with his immense faoe fall of life and hope. It shall bay w a home and furnish it, too, and there should be a very good balance for the ■pree that's called ashore the honeymoon. Your share I hope, Mr. Matthews, will enable you to give up the "After they'd been on tho island a conple of hours they pats off and comes aboard again." Mr. Matthews rose upon the ladder and came in his slow walk along the poop. He looked pale and hollow, as though just out of a hospital. "8orry to say there's a hand dead in the fok'sle, and the others seem in a bad way. I've done what I oould for them." "So we've got Altsa Mansel'8 would be murderer here, have wet" "Did they beach the boat?" said the commander. "There's a sorter natural harbor on the south side of tho island, and the boat lay there in charge of one man while the rest was ashore." ward. Miss Mansel stood beside the boatswain viewing the boat that looked like the reflection of a moon sliding over the blue water. Trivett, glass in hand, exclaimed, "I count six people in her, air.'' "Oh, why, most certainly; anything lean do under you," said the mate, bowing and bowing. The poor man rolled np his eyes, with an expression of devotion. "Pause now," said the oommander, "and give me your attention, my lad. They took the gold away. Did you follow tho boat with your eyes?" "The villains should have surrendered and saved this loss of life," cried the oommandev, stamping bis foot This, where they were sitting, had been the theater of the great ocean theft. Yonder was the cabin out of which they had dragged Miss Mansel. Yonder was the oabin in which the mate had been aroused to learn tbat the ship was seized. "How ooald old Benson have been cach a fool as to let it happen?" said the "Well,"said Boldock, "shoveahead 1 You're confoundedly long winded." "To cut the yarn short," said the aommander, "the ship drifted, the night oame down, tne rolling sea broke upon the island, and when next morning came you found yourselves alone?" This was going beyond what the oommander had indicated in his instructions to Trivett. The red faced officer standing in the cuddy doorway listened in an agony of impatience which, growing insupportable, forced him to sneak along the deck as fast as a crouching and dodging posture would admit toward tt»a (nMoutla whila be aisaad to Harry "It's I can be quick," yelped the Dane, snapping bis fingers. "First and foremost, we have not so much as a pea shooter in the ship Signal Hardy; speak him—quickly, if you please. If tbat boat discovers—as she is sure to do by your topgallant mast being gone—that we are the bark Queen in company with a brig she'll make fcracka. air. and we may haveaum* diffl- "Give me that telesoope," said the commander. "As I came along," continued Mr. Matthews, "your bos'n told me that one of the prisoners had gone mad. I put my bead over the hatch to listen and heard the voice of Mr. Caldwell shouting. It mainlv concerned von. "I watched her, certainly." Again he looked at the boat "Reel it out, then I Reel it out 1" cried the commander. "And I watched her," said Harry. "I wanted to see," continued the little Dane, "if they meant to stow the gold somewhere where it oonld bo foand, if th&v came to barm, without carrying of "So," said he, after a minute's silence. "Six, aa you say. She floats too light for the gold. They have left that ashore in charge of othera and are in M*nh of a shin. The sallwt. rovuur "Yaw, sir," answered the Dane. "How long did the commotion laat?" "Till past midnight." "Rut when dav broke the island vu The Dane began to talk very fast and Miss Mansel fell a-laoghing. "They oomea aboard." continued the Continued on Page Four.
Object Description
Title | Pittston Gazette |
Masthead | Pittston Gazette, Volume 47 Number 20, February 05, 1897 |
Volume | 47 |
Issue | 20 |
Subject | Pittston Gazette newspaper |
Description | The collection contains the archive of the Pittston Gazette, a northeastern Pennsylvania newspaper published from 1850 through 1965. This archive spans 1850-1907 and is significant to genealogists and historians focused on northeastern Pennsylvania. |
Publisher | Pittston Gazette |
Physical Description | microfilm |
Date | 1897-02-05 |
Location Covered | United States; Pennsylvania; Luzerne County; Pittston |
Type | Text |
Original Format | newspaper |
Digital Format | image/tiff |
Language | English |
Rights | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/ |
Contact | For information on source and images, contact the West Pittston Public Library, 200 Exeter Ave, West Pittston, PA 18643. Phone: (570) 654-9847. Email: wplibrary@luzernelibraries.org |
Contributing Institution | West Pittston Public Library |
Sponsorship | This Digital Object is provided in a collection that is included in POWER Library: Pennsylvania Photos and Documents, which is funded by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries of Pennsylvania/Pennsylvania Department of Education. |
Description
Title | Pittston Gazette |
Masthead | Pittston Gazette, Volume 47 Number 20, February 05, 1897 |
Volume | 47 |
Issue | 20 |
Subject | Pittston Gazette newspaper |
Description | The collection contains the archive of the Pittston Gazette, a northeastern Pennsylvania newspaper published from 1850 through 1965. This archive spans 1850-1907 and is significant to genealogists and historians focused on northeastern Pennsylvania. |
Publisher | Pittston Gazette |
Physical Description | microfilm |
Date | 1897-02-05 |
Location Covered | United States; Pennsylvania; Luzerne County; Pittston |
Type | Text |
Original Format | newspaper |
Digital Format | image/tiff |
Identifier | PGZ_18970205_001.tif |
Language | English |
Rights | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/ |
Contact | For information on source and images, contact the West Pittston Public Library, 200 Exeter Ave, West Pittston, PA 18643. Phone: (570) 654-9847. Email: wplibrary@luzernelibraries.org |
Contributing Institution | West Pittston Public Library |
Sponsorship | This Digital Object is provided in a collection that is included in POWER Library: Pennsylvania Photos and Documents, which is funded by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries of Pennsylvania/Pennsylvania Department of Education. |
Full Text | TUL^*Xl!VuT* N5Jo ( Oldest Newspaper in the Wvomlng Va ley. PITTSTON, LUZERNE CO., PA., FRIDAY. FEBRUARY 5, 1897. A Weekly Local and Family Journal. (Vl.OO PER TEAR 1 IN ADVANCK DaDo, "and Davenire, stepping tip to me, gives me a slap on the back like to have broke my spine and yells out: 'You're both good men. Trustworthiness means beer and cuddy stores aboard this ship and as much gold as shall fill each man a pocket handkerchief.' Then, calling to William, 'What,' says he. 'would you advise us to do with the boat?' As neither me nor William oared and as we didn't want the job of helping to hoist her aboard, I says, says I, 'It's a-going to be a fine night, and she'll lie all right astern if she's looked after.' William up and says the same." it off, and William &nd me being alone in the bark I runs aft for a glass." "An intelligent act!" still in sight?" culty in catching her. " hearts! One grieves to be the instrument of arresting so noble an undertaking and spoiling the most splendid adventuro in the annals of freebooting." TWE WRECK Off THE CWMYI^URr COOVRICHT. r896 BY TMf AUTwt)*. "When day broke he w;ts thick with a middling brecsso right off the inland and onr helm was amidships," answered the Dane. "Did it continue thick all day?" "It tnrned to rain and blew fresh, clearing at night, ami in the morning the horizon lay fair, but there was no island." A small ensign run aloft at the gaff end was signal enough to Hardy, who immediately threw tho brig in the wind, and the bark slowly floated on to her quarter. and William not to appear to observe him. He exclaimed in a low voioe to Harry, who bad lounged to the bead of the forecastle ladder on seeing the commander coming: "For the life that's In yoa both don't look down or seem to hsed me. Sing ont this." He dictated the words and Harry, who acted with an adroitness that was not to have been hoped for in William, shrieked in his high notes: of the boarder. Trollope was scaroely recognisable for a wonnd in his head. Pome hand had early laid his cheek open, and hie linen coat was drenched with blood and his left arm was crimson as he raised it. It was a wicked, miserable soene, lifted to no height of "You doru't tell the gen'man it waa me as arsted you to ran for a glass," said William. Nobody was to be seen at the fore end of the ship exoept Harry and William, who walked in the waist awaiting a signal from the commander. The Welleeley had already measured a wide space of water, and her intention of final farewell and departure could not be mistaken."There were several glasses and you fetched one, and you were two men. No matter," said the commander. "Did they get-ashore all right?" "Mr. Hardy," roared the commander, "I am going in chase of that boat in this ship. Send the arms chest and ammunition aboard. See to the cutlasses, Hardy." heroism—though the devil knows it lacked not that quality—because of .the character of the villains. Boldook, gazing a moment, never could have imagined anything to surpass that pioture of "I watched them," said the Dane, "make for their regular landing place and hand the gold oat. It was white beach where they landed, sheltered by a wing of land and a lot of wood, and bright green grass came growing down quite close to the glare of the grit. The chert* were very heavy, and it took hands to move two of 'em at a tirfe, and they never would go but a little distance, - then Deturn for the other chests, as if thty couldn't bear to leave 'em even that short way off. I watched till they was lost among the trees, but put me off that island and I'll give you the beatings of their track, though where they hid the gold I can't say." "Was it the intention of the men, do you think, sir, to recover the ship?" said the mate. "Tttey had the gold, their arms, plenty of provisions ashore. They had their boat (here. They might hope that the bark wduld go to pieces and carry these fellows down into silence with her." "Aye, aye, sir," shouted the man, as bo stood on the rail, holding by the vang, with the foot of his trousers trembling."Up helm!" said the commander. "We'll float down upon them, Trivett, without touching a brace. They shall not see a man bnt yourself and the helmsman aft." " We haven't had time yet to tell the story. Thai there man knowB nothing about you. But I'll go aft and give him the yarn while you wait if you likef" savage resistanoe. "Surrender!" he roared, rushing to- 1 ward the six or seven men who were swinging handspikes and cutlasses at the four. "We don't want your lives, but you're our prisoners—you must be our prisoners! Surrender, you scoun- i drels!" "Who was a-going to keep all on hoisting of that there longboat in and out?" said William. "I may have to deprive you for the time of the services of three of your men. Send six in the boat. You will have plenty to work the brig with. If I should run out of sight of you, make for Halloran island and heave to and wait for me." Something in this speech appeared to decide the six gentlemen. They talked together for a few minutes, looking earnestly at the ship. Every man then saw that his loaded weapon was bandy to his grasp when the six should leap as one for the chains. Weston and Shannon dipped their blades, and the boat approached the bark. The four who stood up idle intently watched the movements of the men who were visible on the vessel.The bark's bead slowly fell off toward the longboat. CHAPTER XXYI. THE SEAMEN'S STOBY. commander. "Was not the robbery ol the arms chest hint enough? Within an hour of that robbery I'd have had the whole of those fellows in irons and chance the issue." "That fired Trollope," continued the Dane—"beg pardon, lady," he exclaimed with an airy bow that fetched a rumble of laughter out of Boldook—"was for having her in boards. 'The only boat!' I heard him say. 'Suppose a sudden gale aud the likes of that' Most of 'em was opposed to him. They'd sorter taken a kind of hatred against the man. I went into the cuddy with a mess kid to get some supper from them, and they was quarreling and arguing with wine in their heads. By Peter, I liked it! When I returned with the kid, I says to William, 'If they keep all on they'll be massacreing of each other I' " "But wouldn't they fear," said the commander, "that abe'd fall in with a vessel and report the whole story?" "My dear," said the commander. Trivett started. "I think you had better go below, and pray be careful not to show yourself until we have polished off your old friends. To think, too," he continued, turning up his great, red face and rolling up hia honest eyes, "that all this should have nome about through you, love, whom they think of as drowned at the bottom of the sea." The night passed quietly. It was a bright moonlight night, aud the vessels, olothed in cold splendor, floated one in the wake of the other like two icebergs "They are nine anned, desperate men, sir," said Mr. Matthews, "and what's to be fallen in witli down here that's going to be of much help to recover a treasure against such determined devils as those fellows?" _A* ne mnnaerea ont tnoee woras a pistol wm fired behind him, and with a groan the unhappy Trollope let fall bia ontlaas. His blood soaked arm sank ■lowly, a piteous expression swam into his eyes as he turned them upon the oommander, death whitened him and made rery ghastly by contrast of hue "Right, sir," bawled Hardy. And a minute later all was hurry and bustle in the little vessel. But Mr. Matthews shook his head. And, indeed, if the commander had been over that desolate breast of breathing Wftten. In the morning it was very Use and the heave of the sea almost "Is she the longboat, do you think, Mr. Matthews?" said Miss Mansel, standing beside the mate, who was again viewiug the still distant object through the ship's glass. "May I say what I think?" cried the Dane, lifting his band and snapping his fingers. row, and when Commander Boldock "You'll find, sir," said Mr. Matthews to the commander, "that they've Stowed it in some cave or natural hollow which won't be hard to find. Observe that they took nothing to dig with to the island." "Are you going to me afore yon gives me some aoconn' want on deck be found the bark within pistol shot of his quarter. He hailed MM; and Mr. Matthews, the main rigging and, leaning off the shrouds with one hand on a ratline, made answer. He gently took the young lady by the band and led her to the companion. She went down the steps, but he remained in the batch hidden and gazing. Tho boat continued to hold 4. course for the Queen as though her occupants bad made up their minds. It was certain that tbey had by this time recognized her. Boldock, standing in tbe companionway, commanded her with his glass and was able to distinguish tbe faces of tbe men. They were six, as the boatswain had said. He who steered was a fine, handsome person, witb a large mustache. The powerful telescope brought them' within a hand reach of the commander, albeit the boat was still a mile off. One who sat near tbe steersman was a fellow of huge bulk. Hia immense figure dwarfed tbe man next bim. it of your- wound that bled in his head, and hC jnd his Mistaking on to hi* knees, next aooentuated the stretching his length. listening ears in When Weston saw this, he flnng his cutlass high in the air and folded his yarn in a fsw «"»•• He was immediately oollared by in his tea* * —wen and Mr. Hankey was wayl.. at the same instant knocked down. ? main chains, "U !t mnst u muBt h®-" Shannon iecame of her Panted« dropping his weapon and stick U * * * • J_j Ll « - . - "I allow," said the Dane, "that when they found the ffeip going or gone they fell to arguing as before as to what should be done, and as every man bad an opinion of bis own nothing was done," said Harry, with a triumphant nod. "Speak," said tbe commander. "I am certain of it. First of all, she ia a ship's boat The coincidence of a ship's boat being adrift down here would be too" extraordinary. Everything tallies. We are fast closing the island. She could have left it but a few hours, so to say. All is happening in small space of water, and you may take my word that Captain Benson's old friends are yonder.'' breaking the silenoe, ■elves?" sang out Trivett, hush in the ship to the tbe boat. He looked at Miss Mansel aa if be expected she would be struck with the word. "How romantic all this is!" exclaimed Miss Mansel. "Van shall bare our "Will yon do me the kindness," shouted Boldock, "to back your topsail and send your boat for the lady and me, aa I propose to do myself tbe pleasure to breakfaat with yon?" minutes," cried Davenire "And yet," exclaimed the commander, attempting in vain a poetical expression of countenance, "if you look at the sea around us, how bald you find it I How, then, should romance live in this barren plain which is as blank as the air it looks up at? But heave ahead with your yarn, my lads." The boat drew to th and, heedless as to what mendooa voioe. "Give "You've forgot to tell the gentlemen about tbe brigantine," said William. "Anyway, something's now done," said the mate dryly, "and that's your yarn, my lads, so you can go forward." "When they found," whipped in Harry, "that there waa no brigantine neither off nor at the island, they looked ailly to a man, one and all. They had fetohed glasses out of the passengers' cabins and worked away at the island and all around it, witb tbeir faces blank aa a sailor's dumpling. It was clear to most in their rage of resolution to repossess themselves of the ship, fired, too, with suspicion of their reception as every black soul of the six was, they sprang with tigerlike leaps into the chains and gained the deck in a dozen heart beats. ing his hands into his pockets and looking at the body of Trollop* He, too, was promptly seized, and the three men wen walked off to the hatch and dropped below. Forthwith tbe necessary maneuvers ware executed and Commander Boldock and bis betrothed were transferred to tbe bark. The boat was then hooked ou, tbe yards swung, and tbe vessels proceeded on tbeir course. "Amazing!" murmured tbe girl. "What will Commander Boldock do? How will he be able to catch them if tbey try to escape?" "What do you say to a decayed toothful of grog apiece for these fellows?" said tbe oommander. "Shall I take them into the cuddy and give it to tbem?" exclaimed Miss Mansel, starting up. She was eager the men should get it and thought tbe mate reluctant. He approached at that moment to make known bis intentions to Mr. Matthews and talked with one hand affectionately but lightly lying on Miss Mansel's shoulder. "Get the irons, Trivett!" shouted the commander. ' 'I suppose there are irons aboard this ship. Who killed that man?" And he pointed to the body of Trollope.! "It was the Dane, sir," answered one of the seamen of . the Queen. This poor fellow ooold scarcely speak, nearly the whole Of hie front teeth having been knocked out j The Dane proceeded: "They came off in the evening and feasted in the ouddy and made a night of it. They took care not to get drank, all 'cepting Bum. They mostly slept on deck and kept a sharp lookont. 'Twas for the brigantine, I allow. There was nothing else to watch for. Next day they all went ashore again and remained till sondown. I could see 'em on the hills among the trees walking about, looking through the spyglasses they'd taken. They oonldn't fear for the ship. The weather kept wonderful fine. Besides, they knew we onderstood dot if we slipped the boat 'ud be alongside afore we could have hoisted a rag of canvas, and then they'd have blowed onr brains ont." "Who's to go on, sir?" said William. Not a moment for breathing and for looking round was permitted. Roaring at the top of his voice, "Now, then, Mr. Matthews—now, then, my hearts—we must nab every one of these fellows; but don't hurt them if they offer no redistance," Bo]dock rushed out, flourishing his cutlass, followed by the mate and the whole body of seamen. "An ambush!" yelled Hankey, and Shannon sprang to the side as if be would jump overboard. Then he faced about, leveling his pistol. After Miss Mansel bad been supported over the side she hid her face and cried for some moments vehemently. The horror of recollection was too great Her heart was broken down by it Mr. Matthews arched bis eyebrows and sent • dry look at Trivett, the boatswain of the brig, wben the commander begun to aoothe the yonng lady. William and Harry came a little distance along tbe deck and stared. of them they was going to do nothing without a small vessel. I heard the man named Weston arguefying that the longboat was big and strong enough for them to go away in, gold, stores and all. for a coast, but the general feeling was that tbe brigantine ought to have been there. As she worn't there they didn't know what to do 'cept to wait for her, to give her a chanoe of turning up, either by cruising in this here vessel or by anchoring and all bands living ashore." "I will save yon that trouble, miss," said Mr. Matthews, with a smile of suspicion, and as he had no steward to call to he told them to follow him into the cuddy, and then he gave each man a wineglassfnl of rum. "We .must catch those fellows by a ruse," said he. "When we are armed, we will shift helm for the boat The bos'n Trivett must coax them on board by the statement I put into his mouth. You, sir, will keep out of sight with the men. William and the Dane will stand by to show themselves on the forecastle. The scoundrels must be on board before the rash is made. Then out you pour to the signal of my shout" Miss Mansel had again and again described the ten men to fioldook, and he immediately said to himself when the lenses perfectly magnified the forms and faces of the fellows to his vision, "That big devil is Oavenire, and the gentleman at the tiller is Captain Trollope," and a third man be instantly knew by recollection of the girl's description, a black faced, hung head man, who lay over the weather gunwale looking right into the oommander's eye under the shadow of his hat But Mr. Weston,1 who was sitting in the bows, Mr. Hankey beside him and Mr. Shannon, who was seated with his back against th«C mast, his arms folded, the oorreotest copy imaginable of a shipwrecked figure, Boldock was unable to identify from memory of Miss Mansel'ssketches. He took her hand and kissed it with ad- "The accursed little foreigner!" exolaimed the oommander, almost losing his roasted looks in the sudden paling heat at his wrath. "I will have him indioted for murder. He shall hang for itl What's beoome of the little dog?" he cried, looking round him. Then, his ■ight going to the three wounded seamen near the hatchway, he called to Mr. Matthews and told him to order some men to lift them and carry them mlrable courtcsy. in charge of the bark it is extremely probable that he would have allowed the ten gentlemen to work their will, as Benson had, and for Benson's reasons. While this was doiug Miss Mansel talked with Boldock about the story the men had given them. The brig was about three-quarters of a mile ahead. The bark was reduced to her topsails and oourses and spanker, and yet the brig's boatswain, who was keeping a lookout on the Queen's poop, found it difficult to stop the clipper from forging ahead of the clumsy wagon on the bow. Bright was that picture of morning in the Pacific. Clouds in breasts of satin jeweled in their skirts with the light of the sun were sailing over the pure, olue sky. The long, lazy Pacific heave was in the sea—that cradling heave which the whaleman knows as be doze* on the lookout at the masthead. There was nothing in sight except the brig. The ocean rippled merrily with the life and soirit of the breeze. The salt sang in the short wake and the white canvas sank in and out in breathing bosoms, flinging a refreshing coolness of eddying drafts down upon the hot decks. "She was overboard and was drowned," Mid the Dane, "and, by my knife, there she is!" They went on the poop. It was a beautiful. warm, irannv morning. The ocean nndalated in long, blue flashes of light from line to line, and a pleasant breeze was blowing, the speed of the two vessels being about five knots. The brig was rolling away oot on the bow, and when the oommander saw her his head rolled, too, in contemptuous sympathy. "The run and lines of a pudding dish," be mused. "She is fit to be a collier, and she brings all Sunderland into this beautiful scene. Suppose, now," said he to Mr. Matthews,' 'you call the two men aft" "Throw down your arms I We don't want to hart you, bnt we must take yon!" bawled the commander, making straight for CaldwelL "There's people," growled William, whom faoe was stupid with surprise and superstition and divers forecastle emotions as he surveyed the gtrl while she stood weeping a minute In the gangway, "as can't get drownded. My grandfather knew a Dutchman who was always a-falling overboard from vessels be belonged to when in dock. They'd bear the splash, sing out to fetch the drags, and, arter an hour or two of sweeping and oreeping, up 'ud come that blistered Dutchman, quite unconscious, of course, but with so much of life in him arter he was rubbed and dried his first words was always, 'Anoder half "Look alive with your yarn, my lad," said Matthews kindly. "If the rogues should refuse to come on board, sir?" said Matthews. He had heard all this before. But Harry was upon a job be enjoyed. He was talking before a girl The fine dark eyes of the young lady dwelt upon him, and Harry was one of those sailors who take great care to make it eight bells with the sun. "Our brains are not one barrel machines," answered the commander, his manner tinged with the contempt which at such a moment a naval officer might justly entertain for an ox faced merchant mate capable of asking useless questions. The six men fired a volley slap at tbe approaching seamen rushing headlong at tbem. "They certainly would have done that" said William, with a sudden distortion of face that at least proved the fellow's slow intelligence possessed some small capacity of realization. oaeefoliy forward to their beds and to aooompeny them, that he might report their condition. The first man they handled was a poor fellow wounded to death. They raised him. He was Tom, the poor sailor that had jumped overboard. He was a favorite in the forecastle despite his queer views and love of argument and taint of harmless madness. "Poor Tom!" said the men as they lifted him. He gave a single struggle and cried, with a dying roll of his eyes, "Mates, God's put the sun out!" It was to be a desperate, unfair fight; six enraged, entrapped men against overwhelming odds. Caldwell, blaok in the face with the devil that was in him, flashed his second shot at the commander. The ruffian missed his aim. He had been more fortnnate with Ur. Marten. His opponent's rnsh gave him no time for a third bullet, and be hnrled the heavy, clumsy weapon—a deadly missile—with the fall strength of his nervous arm at Boldock's head. The pistol struck the uplifted cutlass and snapper the blade short off as though "Aye, aye, sir," hissed he with his rapid utterance and forged ahead thus: He withdrew his hand from Miss Mansel's shoulder and stepped over to Trivett, the boatswain of the brig, whom be addressed in a very earnest, decisive manner, talking with plenty of theatrical gestures, while he frequently looked in the direction of the boat. When he had done with the boatswain, whose faoe glowed with a genial intelligence of his commander's meaning, he bailed the forecastle, and William and Harry came aft. Them also be addressed in firm tones and dramatic gestures. "Next day the gents kept quiet They did nothing but smoke their pipes, watch the sea for the brigantine and stare at the island. Me and William kept forward, wondering bow it was going to end. It was nioe weather, but they was loonatics to let the longboat lie afloat Had they lost her they'd have been forced to use the ship to carry the gold to a coast with, and without a boat aboard we stood all hands to have been drowned." "It grew plain to me and William," continued Harry, "that them gents meant to give the brig antine a good chance, the ship lying at anchor and themselves spending the days ashore along with their gold. Da venire asked William afore going into the boat one morning to let go a second anchor if sarcumstances obliged. William said yes, he'd do that to save the ship for his own life's sake." "Down helm, now, Trivett," said he, after a long silence, during which the boat had drawn almost within musket shot of the bark's bow. Tbe sun did not yet render an awning necessary. The young lady was shaded by her parasol, and she sat next to the oommander, and Matthews stood beside them, while William and Harry, the Dane, in respeotful sea postures related their yarn. Suddenly the boat dropped her lugsail and rocked • her naked mast with the whole six men in her standing up staring under the sharp of their hands, all in attitudes of debating and considering. pint*" The other two were quickly taken "Good!" said little Harry, grinning with all his teeth. "I tell you what I have seen a ghost By Peter, she is a fine girll Look bow she stands up at the aide at that old cock with the red steak faoe. By Peter, there was business to be done there \ uDserve me, ttni. x outer's a splicing job." .. , , •hro" forward. ' ' .... n .n The commander stood beside the bodj 1^7Jm 04 Trollope, (rasing down at the dead 55. fCKM- He lay sideways. The wound was hidden, and Boldock saw a handsome wo men gentiemMj lying death. He lay a for a few min- J"7 ®g?reuof " man' "fd thought that heat sometime In his }_ had met him. "I may recall you . ?® "? / eomeof them days," mused thecom. t ™ mander, with the velocity of thought, . . r® standing for a minute beside the body, stronger or tfte .CTht gentleman is certain '.ife at least *" . . —no doubt an omoer in the army. A ™ base end, an Ignoble end! What did you it * n u do with thorn qualities with which you ■»*■* *»• ■ respectable, even a *hini,18. figure upon this brief vstage? ighted up 'ogive us all I Why did the Dane A his eye* kill this man?" C" he yelled. Ha lifted his wide straw hat to wipe *i with them *weat 'rom streaming face, then and that look from the body, calling to a coubrow. The Ple °* h*»d» to carry it ,to. a foremost nim, aiid now «»dC*y cabin. Trirett came up to him. with a rope to "A ■h«rP boeinees," said the oom- Mansel stood a rnander' "*°d far bloodier than I wanted."a carrot Dropping the nsel William began: "The day afore we made the island I showed the gents how to get the anchors over the bows. Next day we made tbe land. There was a whole swamp of jawing. Every man had his own opinion. I could see that him they called Trollope was no longer to boss the job, though I allowed he was the best of the gang, the properest to head that there tidy little procession." "And you expect to be off the island tomorrow?" said Miss Mansel. "Go now on to the fok'sle, William, and you, Harry, and be steady with your yarn if they should hail you." dock, who was now in thi "I must interrupt," said Mr. Matthews. "When the boat went ashore with the gold, how deep did.she float?" ing fury, received Caldwell "Why didn't yon advise them to lift the boat aboard?'' said the commander. ' 'By tomorrow night I do, my love, certainly, clipped as our plumes are, if this breeze keeps on blowing." "Do you understand mo?" he said. The two seamen ascended the forecastle ladder and showed themselves. at him, and in a breath "She showed a side like a plank, sir," answered William. "She was sunk so deep when the nine of the gents got in on top of the chests that I allow it settled their resolution then and there to give the brigantine a good long chance and to keep the ship at anchor to use by and by if that there Saunders, as I'd hear them call him, didn't tarn up." "Just think I do, sir," answered the Dane, whose face was wrecked with a grin. In fact the little sailor saw much to amuse him in Commander Boldock's appearance, and though on the eve of a business that might cost him his life this wasp of a man oould laugh. The Danes are no cowards. Cowards I More gallant, heroic hearted people than Nelson's "brothers of the English" you shall not find, though the world be searched for them. were locked. Miss Mansel, drying her tears with one hand, the other being clasped by the oommander, was conducted by her sweetheart and Mr. Matthews into the cuddy. She then broke away and vanished in her cabin. "I never thought of the drowning part till afterward, sir." "Suppose the men are ashore? It will bo horribly exciting. They are all armed. What will you do?" said the girl, gazing with the concern of her heart in her agreeable eyes as she fixed them upon the commander's faoe. "Harry, the Dane, ahoy I" roared the thunderous voice of Davenire. "An hour ago we saw that that vessel was our bark. Was it the heavy swell carried you off?" It was a fierce wrestle utes. No man came to the help. Caldwell's intention "It was an easier job," said the oommander, speaking in deep notes and oomplainingly, "to loaf on the fok'sle bead with a pipe in your mouth than to run aloft with a block or to help with a drag on a tackle." dock under and bo Strang' stamp of foot or pressure "Aye, sir," answered the Dane, with a flourish of bis hand. clear. He was by far the "A very handsome little interior," ■aid the commander, straddling at the foot of the table, his hands behind him, and turning his crimson face a boat in admiration, as though he was in a picture gallery. "I hope jou found your effects intact, sir7" "Was be?" hissed Harry softly and fiercely. "We will anchor and go ashore and make the men prisoner*, then look for the gold. And it, stow it and sail away for Sydney," answered Boldock in a certain large, comfortable manner he wax sometimes oaed to pat on after his third glass of hot rum and water. for his liberty, and they two, fighting if not for his "Who are those people aft here?" "Two sailors put aboard us by yonder whaler, sir," answered the Dana rolled and gnashed their "One at a time, and William now jockeys, the yardarm," said the commander."That's about the time of day, sir, with the fok'sle of the red flag in these times," exclaimed Mr. Matthews; "a pipe and a long loaf at the windlass and then a walk aft to ordor the captain to up hellnm for home, as everything's wrong with the blooming old hooker." "They'll never attempt to oarry away the gold in the boat then?" said Matthews to the oommander. sweated, the commander "Don't vou tell anr lies!" roared Caldweii. "That brig's no whaler." well muttering low curses and twisted, till all at ono» "They agreed to sail close in to the island and go ashore in the longboat and take a look around them," continued William. "They had no confidence in one another, and they must all go togetner or remain togetner, ana wnerever the gold was there they all must blooming well be, begging pardon," said the man, touching his forehead in his slow, merchant service way. "They sailed in till they got 17 fadom; then all the sails were furled and the anchor let go. There was nine of 'em." "No." "We'll be armed, I suppose,sir?" said William, to whom the humor of this passage of hifl life appealed but faintly. relaxed and a look of horror "But I always felt it I knew that boat's capacity. Nine men! They'd need to go flush with stores. They'd see to that. They're not gentlemen to go afloat with a view to perishing of thirst anyhow," said Mr. Matthews. "They'll not trust the treasure in her, and unless the brigantine has turned up sinoe the ship was blown or rather rolled away from the island the gold's ashore and ready for us to restow." "Ho, the boat ahoy!" shouted the boatswain, Trivett, from the head of the poop ladder. " Begging your pardon, if you'll come alongside, I'll tell you she is a whaler and give you her master's name and the quSLtity of oil she's got aboard and where she hails from." bis face with the roanding "Intact to a shilling, I am happy to my," said Mr. Matthews. "What was that extraordinary sea which liberated the ships?" said Miss Mansel after a pause, daring which Mr. Matthews bad rejoined tbem. "Certainly," exclaimed Boldock. "O Christ! Look at her Crash! Down he wen words in his evil month This had besn said while the boat of the brig had been coming to the bark with the arms ohest. The oars swept the lubberly fabric alongside. The ohest was promptly got anoara aiong witu -cue brig's store of cutlasses and a quantity of powder and shot for the pistols and muskets. Three of the men re-entered the boat and returned to the brig, whioh forthwith proceeded on her course to Halloran island in obedience to certain instructions which had been dispatched by the commander to Hardy. Boldock's next act was to order the quarter boat out of which the mate and the five seamen had been rescued to be lowered by the shackles as she swung at the davits that she might be the longboat, but as she hit the ship's weather •ride at every heave of the swell, she was lowered into the water and left to float at her painter. "Very airy and cheerfnl after the oabin of the brig,'' said fioldock, breathing deep. "Any damage?" William's face rippled with enjoyment of the mate's plain speaking. A sailor relishes truth about his calling when applied to another and William understood that the mate's remarks were meant for the Dane. of horror on bis hanging "What would you call it?" said the commander, turning Btiffly in his chair to look ap at the mate. commander was on top of "They pillaged some of the passengers' cabins, but you'll find Mint Mantel hasn't suffered. They bad done their worst with her. They'd do no mora " Trivett rushed to his side "All that's devilish easy to invent," shouted Davenire. "Are you four men the only people in that ship?" bind the prisoner. Miss little way in the caddy, quite visible through the door, watohing the fight "An earthquake, I should say, sir." He then went on to the lit- "On you go!" said the commander, who was growing impatient "Pay out I Pay out I" "I can imagine nothing else,"observed Boldock. "We must have been within the area of any storm that oould have set such a swell iu motion and therefore have felt it" "Back, Margaret, back I" panted the commander, but in an andible voioe, to tbe girl, who shrieked: "He is Caldwell! He is the man whose name was on the handkerchief!" And tbns speaking, she fled to the after end of the caddy. tlaoombat had bean fieroe arm long at leaat for numbers bo am The son was high, the wind small sea floated before the faint nc wind in a breast of shivering satii. to where the dim, pearly square of brig's canvas took the eye. The had been held to the wind straggle, and the longboat lay quarter of » mile distant on her tar. Miss Hansel stood beside the w "The bur-lud-dy villains!" exclaimed the oommander, making the sentence tremendous by force of emphasis and slowness of delivery. "How came you to be rolled off the island, as I've heard you express it?" said Boldock. "Boat ahoy!" shouted Trivett. "Won't yoa draw a little closer, so that we can talk? What are you afraid of? I thought yoa were castaway men and bore down to pick you up." "Nine!" exclaimed Miss Mansel. "I forgot to mention," said Mr. Matthews, "there had been a duel." "On the third morning, it being fine, still weather," continued Harry, "a sail showed in the south. The sight drove the gents mad. They rushed aloft with their glasses, and them that hadn't glasses yelled to the others for news. By Peter, then, it was a brigantine as sure as it was blue water she floated on. She was heading west and glided on. The gents swore she'd missed the island, and I heard the soowbanker Trollope tell Davenire that it was Saunders groping for it, and that he must be helped. What followed? We up anchor, made sail and stood out in chase. It was some hours before we drawed near enough to distinguish the oraft, and then some of the gents who knew the Rival says it wasn't her, and some was for speaking the brigantine and taking their chance of what might follow. This led to a quarrel between Captain Trollope—as they called him, but he ain't no captain—and that there Davenire, and blowed if they didn't square up and go for each other. It was a beautiful sight to these eyes," cried the Dane in sudden fury, making passionate gestures as he spoke, ' 'for I was sure the giant dot was good for a traveling cage in my country would kill the other. But the . the northerly down the nark luring the abcmt a quar- "Thoae two men," continued the mate, "tell a queer yarn of the fellows' doings at the island. Will you have them aft at once, or wait till after breakfast?" "Who fought?" asked the girL "Mr. Masters and Mr. Caldwell," answered William. The Dane and William looked at each other, and William spoke. "It's not the first time," said Mr. Matthews, "that I've heard of these unnatural agitations. My father had command of a south seaman, and he used to tell of pioking up the survivors of the crew of a vessel that had gone down bodily, all standing in just such another commotion as those two men have described. It lasted long, too, as though the rollers were the work of one marine spasm after another." "It was shortly afore sundown four days ago, with the roastingest hot look in the face of the west that ever I took notioe of in all my time. The gents had been ashore all day and was still ashore. They seemed sick and tired of keeping • lookout for the brigantine and had left the vessel without taking any glasses with them. So I reckoned from the heap that lay on the cuddy table. We lay about a mile out, and by looking through a talnarmra t ™CnW «oe 'em ulain. sitting, walking about, talking. I was constantly a-watching of 'em in this way, reckoning I'd light on where they'd hid the gold." On this the six gentlemen held a short consultation, often directing their eyes at the bark with many marks of suspicion in their looks and gesture. Then Weston threw an oar over on one side aud Shannon an oar over on the other, and to a very slow beat of blade—every face, the rowers' included, turned toward the Queen—the boat warily approached uutil she was abeam, within comfortable talking distanoe. "So we've got Miss Mansel's would be murderer here, have we?" gasped (he commander, who with Trivett waa now kneeling upon the writhing form. "Fraphim handsomely, Trivett It'll be round the neck when we get him ashore, I expect. Tant as yon pleaw." "Caldwell shot Masters through the heart, this man tells me," said the mate, "and the body was flung overboard." "We'll breakfast first," said the commander, who was exceedingly hungry. "I am one of those unfortunate people Who can't shift without ballast." "May they all serve each other so!" exclaimed the commander, with a pious motion of his eyeballs. 'heel watching her. When Boldock approached, the tuned, and, seeing him, tan to meet him. "Are yon hnrt?" she cried. "Not to the extent of a hair of my head, my dear," he answered. "How the wretches fired t It was a perfect storm of shooting. I listened in the enddy, shivering. If one ball had hit yon"— They made the rounds of the cabins. The oommander found Bioch to say on what he beheld. The main hatch covers were then lifted, and they entered the bold, where for some time on their kneta and hands they remained, viewing the wreck of the massive casing in which the gold bad been stored. When they returned on deck, a very good sea breakfast bad been served by a Jack of the brig, one of those useful seamen who can cook and wait as well as hand and steer. They bound his arms behind him, they bound his legs with the rwift but likewise with the sore hand of seamanship, and then, as though he bad been a newly slaughtered pig, they dragged him to the little steerage batch under the break of the poop and dropped him throngh it, quivering, cursing, howling, bat helpless as a man hanging at a yard arm. Miss Mansel was looking away to sea. She so held her parasol that Boldock could not have seen her just then had he wanted to look at her. She was blushing, and yet her faoe wore a slight look of distress. But before Boldock could bid William proceed she had rallied and the parasol was in ita former plaoe. "Everything's possible at sea," aaid the oommander. The arms chest was opened on the quarter deck and the crew summoned aft when pistols and cutlasses were immediately served out. Just as be prouounoed these words the figure of a man, dwarfed by distanoe, conld be seen franctically gesticulating on the taffrail of the brig. A binocular glass lay upon the skylight, aud the commander with wonderful agility jumped for it "Wouldn't that brig help you to more than two men?" shouted Trollope to the forecastle. "If she's a whaler, she's full hauded." "You'll keep off the forecastle out of sight men, all but William and Henry there. Mr. Matthews will be in oharge of you. When I roar out, you'll run out Down with 'em if they resist, even if it comes to your splitting them in halves; otherwise shed no more blood than you can help. I want to carw those gentlemen sound in limb and wind and appetite to Sydney. Do you understand me? You'll shed no more blood than is to be helped," the commander said, gazing with stern significance at the little Dane, whose countenance showed darkly in the crowd of sailors with evil intentions and the passion of revenge. "Remove his cutlass and give him a handspike, Mr. Matthews," he continued, irritated by the mutinous, piratio scowl of the Dane, differing extraordinarily from his recent face of ruining merriment "We don't want to approach this business in the spirit of murder." "He'll explain, sir," replied Harry, pointing at Trivett on the poop. "But bow was the ship rolled off, man?" said the oommander. "It is pleasant to be thought of in this way. It is a novel sensation to me. There's been nobody to think of me, fair or foul, since my mother died." "They got the boat over in the afternoon, and the nine gents went ashore in her," said William. "They were armed. I seed some of them inspecting their revolvers when they was in the boat. Before they put off Davenire, the big chap with the silver chain, steps up to me and 'Arry 'ere and says: 'We'ro going to leave you in charge of the ship, and we have confidence in you. If you should attempt to play false, by'— and here he swore an oath long as a bowline all about the Etarnal, and so help him," said William, looking with his slow gaze into the commander's wide expanse of countenanoe, " 'we'll secure the pair of you to that mast there and blow your —bum—hum—brains out' " "She's the Irish Girl of Hall, 16 months oat. She fell in with this vessel this morning " cried Trivett who fairly looked the character of the rough whaling mate or superior spouter's seaman no was personating as ne siouu in a sailor's careless attitude, a foot in a coil of rope, a hand on a backstay, dressed in a sleeved waistcoat, well worn oloth breeches and a greasy, gray, felt hat "Captain Button could only spare us two men, but seeing your boat coming along he counted on my finding in you * e extray hands we require to navigate this beautiful andwaluable ship, whioh I tell yoa is flush to the hatches with wool." The struggle, however, was not yet over. The five had fought like furies. They snapped their revolvers to right and left and hurled them as Caldwell bad at the heads of the seamen when the chambers were empty. Three sailors lay wounded from the discharge of those firearms, while the gentlemen themselves remained unhurt. The giant Davenire had wrenched a handspike from the hand of a man, and, thus armed, he rushed upon Mr. Matthews. The worthy mate had a heart of oak, but he was new to this sort of business and could not but spring back from this onslaught of that great figure, terrible with the heavy capstan bar he swung. In another moment the poor fellow would never have needed to sign articles any more for a living. He was saved by Davenire's foot in his white, blind heat striking the revolver that Caldwell had hurled at the commander. It tripped.him, and he was flung. He fell headiong, with all his own aud the weight of the massive beam he grasped. Then the mate, yelling for help, leaped upon him. Three seamen tumbled upon the prostrate giant, yet it took the united strength of those four men to secure the herculean Mr. Mark Davenire. At every wrestling heave and furious motion of his muscular mass of bcdy he slung one or another, making them leap as a man springs from the side of a capsized boat. But numbers must prevail. Matthews gripped him with both hands by the throat and was strangling him, while the seamen were making a helpless bale of the huge robber by turn upon turn of rope round his arms and body and legs. "All of a sudden, while I was looking westward at the flare there and the light upon the water, I saw the sea iu trouble and a-moving. It bad been calm down to this, a nice air of wind out of the south and a small natural heave of swelL The trouble in that water came along in seas." "It's Hardy," he cried. "He's pointing on oar lee beam." "That's altered," said Miss Mansel. Aa the oommander and bis companion entered the cuddy the door of Miss Mansel'a oabin was opened and the young lady made her appearance. Boldock started. He could haTdly credit bis light He had been so used to see Miss Manael in her dressing gown that, now abe waa prettily dressed in serge trimmed as gayly as a yachting costume, be scarcely recognized her. She bad put on a hat, a charming bat, with an ostrich feather coiled round it. The gentlemen rogues had left her cabin untouched, All her toilet conveniences remained, and she bad used them to her inexpressible refreshment and to the distinct Improvement of her charms. So there stood before the commander a w41 dressed, well shaped young lady, with fine, dark, pensive eyes and blushing cheeks and wbite teeth showing as she amiled, and she was to be his wife. "Good heavens!" he ejaculated, in the impulse of his surprise and delight He took bet band, and, raising it to his Hps, kissed it with admirable courtesy, then introduced her to Mr. Matthews as his betrothed. "Sail ho!" shouted a voice on the Queen's forecastla She was about to ask after the prisoners. Some men came along to enter the quarter boat which lay floating in the water alongside and interrupted her. One was Harry the Dane. He looked with a soared though brilliant gaze at the commander and tumbled quiokly into the missen chains before the rest. Boldook did not address him. He called to one of the others: "The longboat, sir, by thunder!" yelled Mr. Matthews, looking through the ship's telescope. Miss Mansel shrieked with excitement"Rollers, then," exolaimed William. "We was riding head on, and the first bowed us cathead under. She rose roaring on top of the next lump of brine with a leap that knocked me down and parted the cable. In the shindy and fear I didn't know the cable was gone. The island was a sight. It was smoking with salt. The rollers flung themselves hundreds of feet high into the air in white water, whioh fell with a noise like bolts of thunder upon a mountain. That curve of land which protected the 'arbor smoked, too, I can tell you," said William, speaking a little fast with some excitement of memory and some enjoyment of his own powers of narration. "It was raging white water in the 'arbor itself, bat all so thick with the mist of spray, though now it was blowing but a light wind, that I could not see what the men were doing of. 1 reckoned, however, that their first idea would be to haul the boat high and dry to save her. There was nine, and it was to be done quickly among 'em. I sings out 'Shall wo let go the second anchor, 'Arry?' That was arter I saw we was adrift, and he yelled oat, 'It 'ud never hold her in this sea. Let her go. It's our chance of getting away, Bill, without risking our lives,' and I don't believe myself that a second a-ichor would dare held the ship. I never saw such a swell, never heard of the like of it. It was got up like magic. Every blow seemed to drive the ship by her own length astern, leaving her sunk in a walley, aud to clear the land we hoisted the fore topmast staysail. This coaxed her head off, but it was wonderful she didn't founder in the trough afore she i-ame staru on, by which time the island was on the quarter, the sun going down and darkness a-settling over the world." "Rollers," said the Dane. skunk"— CHAPTER XXVIL THE FIGHT. "This man is not fit to be trusted wUh a storv." interrupted the commauder. "Piok up the yarn, you, now." Away far down on the edge of the sea glowed a point of light. In the binocular glass the commander leveled it Hhone as the topmost sail of a ship whose keel was sunk to the height of her topgallant yards behind the horiison, but in the ship's powerful telescope that faroff dash of luster hang near and brilliant, a large lugsail and a gunwalo of ship's boat under it, with a row of dots as of heads of men glimmering in the warm transparency between sea and sky. "Any of you men injured?" "None of us here, sir. There's a man dead in the fok'sle." William, wiping a little tobacoo juice from bia lips, said: "Hal" groaned Boldook. "The two gents had a bit of a stand up affair. T'others interfered. One got knocked down. Barn was his name—a gent,"said William, pointing, "wbo was all day long a-drinking bottled beer nnder tbat there skylight. I reckoned upon some shooting, like as afore, bat they was too knowing for that sort of larking this time. There was a great deal of talk and yells to the big ohap that be should apologize, and I see 'em shake hands arter they'd fonnd oat that the brigantine wasn't the vessel they wanted. We anchored and furled everything and lay for three days doing nothing. Me and ' Arry keeping forward without any excuse to go aft couldn't get to hear what was to be done. One day the gents came off the island with a skull they'd picked up, with a hole in it iiud a bird's nest inside. Think of hatching of ideaft after death, the gent Weston said, and there was a great laugh. They made a deal of this skull, then chucked him overboard. Once when I went into the cuddy to ask for something to eat Captain Trollope, who sat at table with three or four others, looked at me hard. I thought he'd speak to mo alone afterward. I'll swear that gent meant treachery to his mates, and it 'ud have come to a scheme with him and wo might have saved the ship and the gold hadn't they on a sudden formed u resolution. They loaded the longboat with cabin stores and went ashore with her. Next day they put the gold into the boat and took it away." "How long have you been aboard?" howled Caldwell, with bin hand at the side of his mouth. The seamen dropped over the side. "So! That was their language. Quite like old times!" exclaimed the oommander. "Fire away!" "It was that sooundrel Dane who killed your friend Trollope, Margaret" "I will shoot him through the brainR all the same!" hissed Harry to a seaman as the body of them went forward. "Give me your pistol, Joe. S'elp me, Cott, you shall have $20 out of my pay for the use of it when we gets wherever we're a-going!" "Not yet had time to take • look around," answered Trivett "This here ship wants men. There's no going below aboard 800 ton when there's only fower to a crew. Ain't that a sextant case in your starn sheets?" "Is Trollope dead?" she exclaimed. "When they was gone"— began Harry, who had been moving impatiently on either leg, darting frequent looks nt Miss Mansel with that sort of smirking, self satisfied air which a certain type of conceited sailors will pat on in the presence of women, though they should be ladies mast high above their condition. "Killed by a dirty little mutinous foreigner, in absolute disobedienoe to my orders. I will see how he 1b to be punished for it I doubt if there is any law that under the oircumstanoes will enable me to get at the scoundrel" Yes, it was a sextant ease and inside it was a sextant that had belonged to the late Captain Benson. When the longboat bad gone ashore with stores, the meu carried with tbem this sextant, a boat's compass and a chart of the south Pacific, but they had not thought of losing the bark or surely they would have provided themselves with one or more of the glasses on board, and at least one of the ship's chronometers. "It's this ship's longboat" exclaimed Mr. Matthews, in a voice strained by all sorts of sensations into a high note. "I will swear to her, distant as she is." The commander went on to the poop with acutlass strapped round his waist and a loaded pistol in his pocket leaving the mate in charge of the men for- "Captain Trollope dead I" murmured the girl "Are others of them killed?" "I said one at a time," thundered Boldock. "All unhurt in irons in the steerage." "Very well," said the commander, coolly putting down the binocular glass. All excitement was gone from him. His nostrils were large; determination had fixed the expression of his faca The spirit of roast beef had started, but not from its gravo, in that sturdy, resolved fhnpe. He said, letting fall his intoning tricks of speech, talking indeed rather rapidly, with a pulse of decision, however, in every word: They stood watcniug me mi obliging the lougboat to tbe ship, and they talked of the fight, and Miss Mansel asked tbe oommander if he saw the look on Caldwell's faoe when he saw her? "I had thought as much, sir," said the mate, with one of those dry, nervous ■miles which twist the month toward the cheek. "I heartily congratulate yon both," and be bowed with the grace of a sailor bending at the handle of a pump. Harry's jaw tell. William went on after a leisurely look around the horizon, as though ho scanned the sea for thought and words. "When we was left alone, 'Arry here was for slipping. 'Yes,' I says, says I, 'and git our brains blowedont* He says: 'They'll think the chain parted. What do they know about cables?' Well.it wasn't done. This 'ere little 'Arry had been already knocked about till be was nigh killed by tbat there Trollope." "It was Dot a favorable moment for observation," said the commander. "I tripped him on a sadden rather easily, I thought, and fell with him and on him. He ouries the aspect of a picked charaoter. The handkerchief convicts him as one of them. I should like to know who was the other." "If that's ft sextant," continued Trirett, bawling down at the boat tbat was right abreast of the ship, sinking and falling, and rocking her naked mast that stood up like a lightning withered pine while Mr. Shannon and Mr. Weston kept their oars overboard, scarce paddling, however, to hold their little fabric in position, "there'll be a navigator among you, and"— He changed his manner and feigning a sudden air of suspicion with suoh admirable dexterity as would have delighted the commander had he been watching the fellow he shouted: "But what are you and where do you come from? What ship did you belong to? You've got the looks of passengers. I should like to hear your yarn aforo you come aboard." No mare was said on the subject, and ftheyaat down to breakfast. The talk naturally concerned the robbery, the proceedings of the thieves, the chances of capturing them and recovering the gold. "There is nothing more probable than that she should prove the longboat We aro within, comparatively speaking, a few boars' sail of the island. If that boat left it yesterday and headed north, as she appears to be doing, she was almost certain to fall in with us. But for all that, Mr. Matthews, it is a stroke of fortune of which we must be able to give a good account Sir, you will give me leave to take command of this vessel?"There was no more noise of firearms after Davenire was secured. Troliope, Weston, Shannon and Hankey, with their backs against the bulwarks in the gangway, were making a magnificent stand when the commander, having dropped Mr. Caldwell into the steerage, looked round from the hatchway at the quarter deck scene of struggle. Davenire was even then being bonnd, and the mate knelt upon him with his handn upon bis throat. You might have heard the groans of the wounded men above the cries and curses of the seamen as they hacked and hewed at the four gentlemen against the bulwarks, not wishing to shoot them and not able to subdue them. All four men bad managed lo wrench cutlasses out of the grasp of their opponents, and they made a lightning in the air with these weapons as they struck in return, lunging and parvying, or letting drive the slinging bow* The Dane, in an agony of impatience and recollection, struck his hip a slap tbat sounded like the report of a pistol. "It is like a dream," said the girl. "Yet I oould swear that the other was Mr. Davenire." "I must have those naggets, Margaret," Boldock said, with his immense faoe fall of life and hope. It shall bay w a home and furnish it, too, and there should be a very good balance for the ■pree that's called ashore the honeymoon. Your share I hope, Mr. Matthews, will enable you to give up the "After they'd been on tho island a conple of hours they pats off and comes aboard again." Mr. Matthews rose upon the ladder and came in his slow walk along the poop. He looked pale and hollow, as though just out of a hospital. "8orry to say there's a hand dead in the fok'sle, and the others seem in a bad way. I've done what I oould for them." "So we've got Altsa Mansel'8 would be murderer here, have wet" "Did they beach the boat?" said the commander. "There's a sorter natural harbor on the south side of tho island, and the boat lay there in charge of one man while the rest was ashore." ward. Miss Mansel stood beside the boatswain viewing the boat that looked like the reflection of a moon sliding over the blue water. Trivett, glass in hand, exclaimed, "I count six people in her, air.'' "Oh, why, most certainly; anything lean do under you," said the mate, bowing and bowing. The poor man rolled np his eyes, with an expression of devotion. "Pause now," said the oommander, "and give me your attention, my lad. They took the gold away. Did you follow tho boat with your eyes?" "The villains should have surrendered and saved this loss of life," cried the oommandev, stamping bis foot This, where they were sitting, had been the theater of the great ocean theft. Yonder was the cabin out of which they had dragged Miss Mansel. Yonder was the oabin in which the mate had been aroused to learn tbat the ship was seized. "How ooald old Benson have been cach a fool as to let it happen?" said the "Well,"said Boldock, "shoveahead 1 You're confoundedly long winded." "To cut the yarn short," said the aommander, "the ship drifted, the night oame down, tne rolling sea broke upon the island, and when next morning came you found yourselves alone?" This was going beyond what the oommander had indicated in his instructions to Trivett. The red faced officer standing in the cuddy doorway listened in an agony of impatience which, growing insupportable, forced him to sneak along the deck as fast as a crouching and dodging posture would admit toward tt»a (nMoutla whila be aisaad to Harry "It's I can be quick," yelped the Dane, snapping bis fingers. "First and foremost, we have not so much as a pea shooter in the ship Signal Hardy; speak him—quickly, if you please. If tbat boat discovers—as she is sure to do by your topgallant mast being gone—that we are the bark Queen in company with a brig she'll make fcracka. air. and we may haveaum* diffl- "Give me that telesoope," said the commander. "As I came along," continued Mr. Matthews, "your bos'n told me that one of the prisoners had gone mad. I put my bead over the hatch to listen and heard the voice of Mr. Caldwell shouting. It mainlv concerned von. "I watched her, certainly." Again he looked at the boat "Reel it out, then I Reel it out 1" cried the commander. "And I watched her," said Harry. "I wanted to see," continued the little Dane, "if they meant to stow the gold somewhere where it oonld bo foand, if th&v came to barm, without carrying of "So," said he, after a minute's silence. "Six, aa you say. She floats too light for the gold. They have left that ashore in charge of othera and are in M*nh of a shin. The sallwt. rovuur "Yaw, sir," answered the Dane. "How long did the commotion laat?" "Till past midnight." "Rut when dav broke the island vu The Dane began to talk very fast and Miss Mansel fell a-laoghing. "They oomea aboard." continued the Continued on Page Four. |
Tags
Comments
Post a Comment for Pittston Gazette