Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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0-0. RNAL -CAROLINA. ther the softer the ird, too. that gets a < im. /ya that all war is Meanwhile, swat ,,h society, a six foot an is to, marry a seven re worse occupations, too, on dayX than that of eating iced A loupes. n 100 years the summer clad man III look back with horror on the oated man of today. Anybody who wants a coat of tan this summer ought to be able to achieve his heart's desire. Why swat the- flies yourself when you can keep a pet toad to attend to the fly swatting department? Danger from rabies would be greatly Minimized if all dogs were given plenty of cold water to drink. Austria is to charge its tobacco smokers $15,000,000 more a year. Its object is not to cure them of smoking, either. A Massachusetts man was choked to death by his celluloid collar. An other argument for the modern, up to-date rag stifler. A New York judge has decided that a woman is not entitled to alimony when she makes her husband cook his own breakfast. Hooray! Senator Clark has a $125,000 pipe organ in his mansion, but when it comes to music we have no doubt that the senator prefers ragtime. A kind-hearted New Jersey yaad master held a freight car five weeks on a siding because a thrush had built her nest on one of its trucks. A professor of chemistry stopped a runaway horse by dashing ammonia into its face. There's a device that might e tried on runaway husbands. " Vhat from an ancient Egyptian t b" has been successfully planted Jorado, so good wheat must have C. selected by the cute Arab guides , put it in the tomb. th , lecause ~: ril kltased her ttfeu a ring their hon.y hi havi New York lady has applied er nati ittle kisses, too. - lhe ser y. Soat Oaaa debating society has nocad that the herse is mnore dlesir point 0 than the automobile. The so ihorror must be made up or people who SenmV ,ages instead of salaries. ing not'. *was re Ie kaiser's only daughter is 18, of Benato unny disposition, and will marry and t ,m she chooes. Other recommon The r ions may be had by addressing her firecf "or at his Berlin residence. arr T Newv Jersey woman is said to mel 'e been inoculated with rabies by >ttle-nag lilt by a bullet which passed All rough a mad dog. Fast thing, the germ that can hook onto a bullet. The peopie of Charleston, S. C., are Sjubilant because fifteen babies were born there in one night recently. Charleston may be expected to immie diately apply for the takinig of a new census. A "punch in the jaw" delivered by a wife laid her husband up for twen ty-two weeks. With a passion, for ex act detail, he also reports that the third vertebra was displaced one-six teenth of an inch. A Philadelphia woman gets a di Vorce rathmeta than live in Chicago. Quoting George Ade: "Soniebody -, must live hero." lHowever, the time from Philadelphia to New York has been cut to less thani twvo hours, A Chicago doctor is quoted as say ing that 60 per cent. of the dogs that bite people are infected with rabies. Then the popular inmpression that be lng bitten by a mad dog is fatal seems to be pretty thoroughly refuted, inas anuch as no rabies epidemic amonig hiu hnan subjects has been reported. A man in New York who has achieved an international reputation as an inventive engineer- while out oa bail on a charge of larceny, now goes to jail for two years and six months. The state can well affor-d to see that beo has leisure in captivity to go on with his inventions. Certain vague allusions in the pa 'pers head to the suspicion that Keo kuk is building a dam across the Niississippi which will conserve all the water of that eccentric old stream that is not needed for the mainten ance of its catfish. Keokuk hitherto has been called the "jNato city." Hlence forth it will be known as-but this is merely conjectural, A physician tells us thia yawning S is good for the he thi. 44any rate People who are in t ha6 it of yawn hna rarely breakdow from -overwork The BLX YLOUIS J03] AUTHOR. OP "' TH BRA OLVM iNT P VkU0(D 0 / Y N COP VA1C'#r BY LOIJ/4 c1OSEP/f &'A)?C CHAPTER L Destiny and the Babu, Breaking suddenly upon the steady drumming of the trucks, the prolong ed and husky roar of a locomotive whistle saluted an immediate grade crossing. Roused by this sound from his soli tary musings in the parlor car of which he happened temporarily to be the sole occupant, Mr. David Amber put aside the magazine over which he had been dreaming, and looked out of the window, catching a glimpse of woodland road shining whito between somber walls of stunted pine. Lazily he consulted his watch. "It's not for nothing," he observed pensively, "that this railroad wears its reputation; we are consistently late." His gaze, again diverted to the fly ing countryside, noted that it had changed character, pine yielding to scrub-oak and second-growth - the ragged vestments of an area some years since denuded by fire. This, too, presently swung away, giving place to cleared land-arable acres golden with the stubble of garnered harvests or sentinelled with unkempt shocks of corn. In the south a shimmer of laughing gold and blue edged the faded hori son. Eagerly the young man leaned for ward, dark eyes lightening, lips part ing as if already he could taste the savour of the sea. Then, quite without warning, a deep elbow of the bay swept up almost to the railway, its surface mirror-like, profoundly blue, profoundly beautiful. "I think," said the traveler softly "I think it's mighty fine t6 be alive and-here!" He lounged back conifortably again, smiling as he watched the wheeling landscape, his eyes glowing with ex pectancy. For his cares were negli gible, his content boundless; he was experiencing, for the first time La many years, a sense of freedom akin to that felt by a schoolboy at the be ginning of the summer vacation. The iorl 6? Iis tIeart and hanAi for a little time belonged equally to a forgotten YusLsimday and an uncontemplated To morrow; he existed only for the con fident Today. le had put behind him the haunts of men, and his yearning for the open places that lay before him was almost childlike in its fer veney; ho would, indeed, have been quite satisfied if assurcd that he was to find nothing to do save to .lay aim lessly in the sun. 1llut, in ploint of fact, he looked forward to an employ ment much mci-c l)0ensurable; lie was off to sheet duck with his ver-y dear friend, Mi-. Authony Qualn of Tangle wood lodge, Nokomnis, Long island. Again the whistle bawled uncannily, and the train began to moder-ate its speed. Objects in the~ foreground that otherwise had been mere streaked blurs assumed recognizable contours. North of the line a string of squat, squar-e, unlovely "frame" edifiees, aligned upon a country iroad, drliftedl back. A brakeman pop~ped head and shoulders into the cai- andl out again, leaving the echo of an abr-upt bark to be inter-pr-eted at the passenge's leisure. Slowly jolting acr'oss a r-utted, dusty road, the car-s stopped. Amuber, alight. ing, found himself upon a length - of board-walk pllatfrm anid confronted by a distressingly matter'-of-fact w~ood en str-uctur-e, combining the functions of waiting room and ticket and1( tele graph offices. From its eaves de pendedi a weather-wor-n board bear-ing the legend: "Nokomnis." The train , pausing only long enough to disgorge from the baggage car1 ai trunk or two( and fromi the (lay coach es a thin tr-ickle of passenger-s, flung on into the wilderness, cracked bell clanking somewhat disdainfully. By degrees the platfor-m cleared, the erstwhile patrons of the iread and the station loafers-for the most part hall marked natives of the region--strag gling off upon their sever-al ways seone afoot, a major-ity in dilapidated sur-reyd and buckboar-ds. Ambem watched them go wit-h unassumod in difference; their- type inter-estod him little, liut in their- company lie pires ently discovered one, a figure sc thoroughly foreign and aloof in atti tudle, that it caught his eye, and, hay ing caught, held it clouded with per plexity. Abruptly he abandoned his belong ings and gave chase, oveirtaking the object of his attention at the fai' end( of the station. "Doggott!" he cried. "I say, Dog gott!" Is hand, falling lightly upon the me~n's shoulder, brought him square ly about, his expression transiently startled, if not a shade trumculent. "Doggott, what tihe deuce bi'ings you hero? And Mr. Rutton?" Amber's cordiality educed no re sponae. The gray eyes, meeting eyes dark, kindly, and penetrating, flicker ed and fell; so nmuchi emlot ion they be trayed, no more, and that as disingen nous as you could wish. "Doggott!" insisted Ambcr, dis concerted. "Surely you haven't for gotten me-Mr. Amber?" The man shook his head. "Beg par don, sir," he said; "you've got my ;PH VANCD S DOWIs." /E. 0 f3 WRSLUGZILO nyme 'andy enough, but I don't know you, and-" "But Mr. Rutton?" "Is a party I've never 'eard of, if you'll excuse my sayin' so, no more'n I 'ave of yourself, sir." "Well," began Amber; but paused, his face hardening as he looked the man up and down, nodding slowly. "Per'aps," continued Mr. Doggott, unabashed, "you mistyke me for my brother, 'Enery Doggott. 'E was 'ome, in England, larst I 'eard of 'im. We look a deal alike, I've been told." ' "You would be," admitted Ambet drily; and, shutting his teeth upon h inherent contempt for a liar, lic swung away, acknowledging with v curt nod the civil "Good arfternoon sir," that followed him. The man had disappeared by th time Amber regained his kit-bag and gun-case; standing over which h surveyed his surroundings with som annoyance, discovering that lie nom shared the station with none but th( ticket agent. A shambling and *dis consolate youth, clad in a three-days growth of beard, a checked jumpei and khaki trousers, this persor lounged negligently in the doorway o the waiting room and, caressing hit rusty chin with nicotine-dyed fingers regarded the stranger in Nokomb with an air of subtle yet vaguely mel ancholy uperiority. "If y6 re lookin' for th' hotel," h( volnteered unexpectedly, "there aln norie," and effected a masterly retreal into the ticket booth. Amused, the despised outlandei picked up his luggage and followe< amiably. "I'm not looking for tho hotel that ain't," he said, plantinj himself in front of the grating; "bu I expected to be met by some on( from Tanglewood-" "Thet's the Quain place, daown b th' ba-ay," interpolated the youth fron unplumbed depths of mournful ab straction. "It is. I wired yesterday-" "Yeour name's Amber, ain't it?" "Yes, I-" "WVell, Quain didn't get yeour mes sage till this niornin'. I sent a kic daown with it 'baout ten o'clock." "But why the-but I wired yester day afternoon!" "I knaow ye did," assented thi youth wearily. "It come througl raound closin' time and they wa'n' nobody baound that way, so I held I Over." "This craze for being characteris tic," observed Mr. Amber obscurely "is the only thing tha.t really standi in the wany of Nokomis bev'omiing a thriving muetropoits. Do ym'i agr-ei with me? No matter." ie smiled en gagingly; a seasoned traveler this who could recognize the futility o bickering over the irreplarable. More over-, he had to remind himse'lf in al fairness, the blame was, in rut a least, his own ; for lie had thought lessly wvorded his telegram, "Will bi with- you tomorrow aftrnoon," and I was wholly lik'e Quain that he shouk have accepted the statement at ill race value, r'egardlless of the date line "I can leave my things hereo for a little while, I presume?" Amber sug gested after a pause. The ticket agent star-ed stubbornly into the infinite, making nio sign till a coin r-ang on the wvindow-ledge ; whet he started, eyed the offer-ing with fugi tive inistrust, and gloomily possesset himself of it. "I'll look afte'r them,' he said. "lie ye thtinkin' of walkin'? "Yes.' said Amber ovor his shoul decr. Hle was already moving towart the (10or. "Knaow yeour wna-ay?" "I've been here hefore, thank you. Cr-ossing the tracks, lhe addresse< himself to the seut hwarid stretchinj highway. Walking briskly at first, hi soon1 left behind the railway statiot with its few parasitic cottages, a dii in tho land hid them, and ho hai hereafter for all company hil thoughts, the dlesultery roadl, a vas and looming sky, and bare field: hiedgedI with impijoverished forest. Amber had pr'ofessed acquaintance with his way; it seemed rather to b< intimacy, for when he chose to foi sake the main tiraveled road lhe did si boldly, striking off upon a wagot tirack which, leading across the fieldi delved presently into the heart of the forest. The hush of tho forest world bori heavily upon his senses; the sligh and stealthy rustlings in the brusla the clear dense ringing of some re Imote ax, an attenuated clamor o cawing ft-em some far crows' cor Igross, but served to accentuate its ir fluence. Then into the silence crept a soun lrouse himi from his formless rei erie. At first a mere pulsing in th stillness, barely to be distinguishe ftrom the song of the surf; but p'es ontly a pounding, ever louder an morro insistent, H-e pauisedi, attentive and while ho waited the dr'umming minute by minute gaining in volumE swept swiftly toward him--the rh)fI inic hoofbeats of a single horse mnadl ridden. When it was close utpon hir lie stepped back into the tangled ur (letrgrowth, making room; for thi track was anything but wide. Simultaneously there burst tnt view, at the end of a brief aisle c trees, the norse-a vigorous black f brute with white socks and muzzle- i running freely, apparently under constraint neither of whip nor of spur. In the saddle a girl leaned low over the horn-a girl with eyes rapturous, face brilliant, lips parted in the least of smiles. A fold of her byack habit skirt, whipping out, almost snapped in Amber's face, so close to him she rode; yet she seemed not to see him, and very likely did not. A splendid sketch in black and white, of youthful spirit and joy of motion; so she pass ed on and was gone. . . . Hardly, however, had the forest closed upon the picture, ore a cry a heavy crashing as of a horse thresh Ing about in the underbrush, and a woman's scream of terror, sent Am ber, in one movement, out into the road again and running at a pace which, had he been conscious of it, would have surprised him. A short 60 yards separated him from the bend in the way round which the horse and its rider had vanished. He had no more than gained this point than ho was obliged to pull up sharply to avoid running into the girl herself. Although dismounted, she was on her feet, and apparently uninjured. She stood with one hand against the trunk of a tree, on the edge of a small clearing wherein the axes of the local lumbermen had but lately been busy. Her horse had disappear ed; the rumble of his hoofs, diminu endo, told the way he had gone. So much Amber comprehended in a single glance; with a second he sought the cause of the accident, and identified it with a figure so outre and bizarre that he momentarily and ex cusably questioned the testimony of his senses. At a little distance from the girl, in the act of addressing her, stood a man, obese, gross, abnormally dis tended with luxurious and sluggish living, as little common to the scene M IB So She Passed as a statue of Phoebus A pollo had been. A babu of Ilengal, every inch of him, from his dirty r'ed-and-white turban to his well-wvorn and cracked patent-leath er shoes. 1His body was enveloped in a complete suit of emerald silk, much soiled and faded, and girt with a sash of many colors, crimson pro dominating. Is hands, fat, brown, and not overclean, alternately flutter ed apologetically and rubbed one an other with a suggestion of extreme urbanity; his lips, thick, sensual, and cruel, mouthed a broken stream of babu-English; wvhile his eyes, nearly as small and quite as black as shoe buttons-eyes furtive, crafty, and cold-suddenly distended and became fixed, as with amazement, at the in stant of Amber's appearance. -Instinctively, as soon as ho had mastered his initial stupefaction, Am Sber stepped forward and past the girl, ,placing himself between her and this preposterous apparition, as if to shield her. He held himself wary and yalert, and was instant to halt the t babu when ho, with the air of a dog ,cringing to his master's feet for pun .ishment, would have drawn nearer f"Stop right there!" Amber told him -crisply; and got for response obedi -ence, a low salaam, and the Hindu salutation accorded only to persons of high rank: "Hazoor!" But before -the babu could say more the Amieri can addressed the girl. "What did he do?" he inquired, without looking at her. "Frighten your horse?" "Just that." The girl's tone was edged with temper. "He jumped out from behind that woodpile; the horse ,shied and threw me." -"You're not hurt, I trust?" V "No-thank you; byt"-with a nervous iaugh-"l'm fur'iously angry." "That's 'reasonable enough." Am ber returned undivided attention to the Bengal . "Now then," he demand f for your . 'gj-'- -' l~] ... A. 1* ......... righteanng this lady's horse? What re you doing here, anyway?" Almost groveling, the babu, answer d him in Urdu: "Hazoor, I- am your lave-" Without thinking Amber couched is retort in the same tongue: Count yourself lucky you are not, log!" "Nay, hazoor, but I meant no harm. was resting, being fatigued, in the 'helter of the wood, when the noise if hoofs disturbed me and I stepped >ut to see. When the woman was hrown I sought to assist her, but she hreatened me with her whip." "That is quite true," the girl cut in iver Amber's shoulder. "I don't think is Intended to harm ne, but it's pure y an accident that-he didn't." inasmuch as the babu's explanation iad been made in fluent, vernacular Jrdu, Amber's surprise at the girl's -vident familiarity with that tongue ,vas hardly to be concealed. "You un lerstand Urdu?" he stammered. "Aye," she told him in that tongue, 'and speak it, too." "You know this man, then?" "No. Do you?" "Not in the least. How should I?" "You yourself speak Urdu." "Well, but-" The situation hardly Lent itself to such a discussion; he had the babu first to dispose of. Am ber resumed his cross-examination. "Who are you?" he demanded. "And what is your business in this place?" The fat yellowish-brown face was distorted by a fugitive grimace of deprecation. "Hazoor, I am Behari Lat Chatterji, solicitor, of the Inner Temple." "Well? And your business here?" "Hazoor, that is for your secret ear." The babu drew himself up, as suming a certain dignity. "It is not meet that the message of the Bell should be uttered in the hearing of an Englishwoman, hazoor." "What are you drivelling about?" In his blank wonder. Amber returned to q C/ nd Was Gone. English as to a tongue more suited to his urgent need or forcible expression. "And, look here, you stop calling me 'H-azoor.' I'm no more a hazoor than you are-Idiot!" "Nay," contended the babu reproach fully; "is it right that you should seek to hoodwink me? Have I not eyes with which to see, ears that can hear you speak our tongue, hazoor? I am no child, to be played with-I, the ap pointed Mouthpiece of the Voice!" "I knew naught of your 'Voice' or its mouthpiece; but certainly you are nc child. You are either mad, or insolent -or a fool to be kicked." And in ex asperation Amber took a step towardl the man an If to carry into effect his implied threat. Alarmed, the bahu cringed and re treated a pace; then, suddenly, rais ing an arm, indicated the girl. "IHa zoor!" he cried. "Bie quick-the woman faints!" And as Amber hastily turned, with astonishing agility the babu sprang toward him. Warned by his moving shadow as much as by the girl's cry, Amber leapt aside and lifted a hand to strike; but before he could deliver a blow it was caught and a small metallic object thrust into It. Upon this his fingeru closed instinctively, and the bahL sprang back, panting and quaking. "The Token, hazoor, the Token!' he quavered. "It is naught but thai -the Token!" "Token, you fool!" cried Amber staring stupidly at the man. "What in thunder-" "Nay, hazoor; how should I tel] you now, when another sees and hears? At another time, hazoor, in a week, or a day, or an hour, mayhap I come again-for your answer. Til then and forever I am your slave, ha zoor: the dust beneath your feet.N I go. And with a haste that robbed the courtesy of its grace, the Pe-dit: ......... n wheeled set ut and ,hithing hts c)otbig round hwni made off with a celerity surprising in one of his, tremendous bulk; striking directly into - the heart ,of the woods. Amber was left to knit his brows over the object which had been forced upon him so unexpectedlr. It proved to be a small, cubical box, something more than an inch square, fashioned of bronze and elaborately decorated with minute relief work in the best manner of ancient Indian craftsmanship. "May I see, please?" The voice of the girl at his side recalled to Amber her existence. "May I see, too, please, Mr. Amber?" she repeated. CHAPTER Ii. The Girl and the Token. In his astonishment he looked round quickly to meet the gaze of mischiev ous eyes that strove vainly to seem simple and sincero. Aware that he faced an uncommon ly pretty woman, who chose to study . him with a straighforward interest he was nothing loath to imitate, he toolk time to see that she was very fai.' of skin, with that creamy, silken whiteness that goes with hair of the shade commonly and unjustly termed red. Her nose he thought a trace too severely perfect in its modeling, but redeemed by a broad and thought' ful brow, a strong yet absolutely feny inine chin, and a mouth . . . Well, as to her mouth, the young man so lected a rosebud to liken it to. Having catalogued these several features, he had a mental portrait og. her he was not likely soon to forget. For it's not every day that one en counters so pretty a girl in the woods of Long Island's southern shore-or anywhere else, for that matter. He felt sure of this. But he was equally certain that he was as much a stranger to her as she to him. She, on her part, had been busy satisfying herself that he was a very presentable young man, in spite of the somewhat formidable reputation he wore as a person of learned attain ments. If his looks attracted, it was not because he 'was handsome, for that he wasn't, but because of certain signs of strength to be discerned in his face, as well as an engaging man ner which he owned by right of an. cestry, his ascendants for several gen erations having been notable repre sentatives of one of the First Families of Virginia. The pause which fell upon the girl's use of his name, and during which they looked one another over, was sufficiently prolonged to excuse the reference to it which Amber chose to make. "I'm sure," he said with his slow smile, "that we're satisfied we've never met before. Aren't we?" "Quite," assented the girl. "That only makes it the more mys terious, of cotarse." - "Yes," said 'she provokIngly: "doesn't it?" "You know, you're hardly fair to me," he asserted. "I'm rapidly be ginning to entertain doubts of my senses. When I left the train at No komis station I met a man I know as well as I know myself-pretty nearly; and he denied me to my face. Then, a little later, I encounter a strange,1 mad Bengali, who apparently takes me for somebody he has business with. And finally, you call me by xinine. "It isn't so very i'emarkable, when you come to consider it," she returned soberly. "Mr. David Amber is rather well known, even in his own country. I might very well have seen your phmo tograph published in connection with some review of--let me see.... Your latest book was entitled 'The Peoples of the Hindu Kush,' wasn't it? You see, I haven't read it.". "That's sensible of you, I'm sure. Why should you? . . . But your theory dloesn't hold water, because I won't permit my publishers to print my picture, and, besidIes, reviewvs of such stupid books generally appear 7 in profound monthlies which abhor il. lustrations." "Oh!" She received this with o note of disappointment. "Then my ex planation won't do?'' "I'm sorry," he laughed, "but you'll have to be more ingenious--qnd prac tical." "And you wor't show me the pres. ent the babu made you?" 'P He closed his fingers jealously over the bronze box. "Not until ... "You insist on reciprocity?" "Absolutely." "That's very unkind of you." "How ?" he demanded blankly. (TO BE CONTINUED.) His Self-Defense. "When a man's marr'ied," said Rose Stahl, "his excuses begin. "Did you ever hear how Sambo got out of if when ho was caught in the tur'key coop?" "'Deed, mistah,' ho said, "'(Iced sah, I isn't a-stealin' dis yah bird. I'se takin' it in self-defense. Hones' I is! "'Self-defense?' r'oared the indig nant owner, shaking him by the col lar. 'Wh.at kind of a lie are you try. ing to tell me?' "'Please, sah.' wailed the muich. abused Sambo, 'mah wife she say of I doan' fotch home a turkey she gwine to break ebery bone in nmah body. An' so I jes' 'bleeged ter pertect mah se'f !' "-Young's Magazine. Blank FIlled Coreotly. "Whexn Lizz~'ie Tiimms filled out her i application blank to teach school,' laughs the neighbor, "she wrote on the line asking what her ago was. 'My age is twenty years 01(1.' Wasn't that a ludicrous mistake?". "Oh, I don't know. You misunder stand it. She was honest. She 'was giving the age of her age, not of hera self. She has claimed to be twgo4 for about that long.-Ju,.