Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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JflllMIIIIUHIIIHIIIIIIIIIiailMMIIIIIIHIMIIIIIiailllllllBlllimiUBII'l^ Pianos and Organs At present we desire to call especial attention to the Adain Schaff piano, which is used exclusively in the public schools of Chicago. The factory has been established forty years. It is a strictly high grade standard piano. Prices of uprights are from $300 to $500, Farrand Organs. We have sold over 1,500 Farrand organs and all of them are now giving satisfaction. We also car ry a line of other makes of pianos and organs. Any of our goods are sold on liberal terms of payment. Satisfaction guaranteed in every particular. Holland Brothers, Greenwood, S. C. Horses and Mules. * Before buying see our Kentucky $ Horses and mules. $ Our pri?es are right. J / Augusta's Leading Jewelry Store We invite our Edgefield friends to call at our store when in the city and inspect our large stock ot silverware, Cut Glass, Watches, Diamonds, Gold and Silver and novelties of all kinds. We are constantly replenishing our stock with the latest and newest designs from the most reliable manufacturers and importers. Our prices are very reasonable. It will be a pleasure for us to serve you, A. J, Renkl, 706.Broad Street Augusta, Georgia. N_/ Attention: Farmers of South Carolina This is the year for you to return to your "first love," the Old Reliable "Star Brand" Wilcox & Gibbs Guano Co's Manipulated Guano, and use it on your crops ex clusively. It has gi/en satisfaction wherever used for over 45 years, and is acknowledged by those who use it to be the best all-round Cotton and Corn Fertilizer in the world. It gives you the Best Results for the Least Money. It is Cheap in price, High Grade in Analysis, made of the Best Materials, and has a record of 45 years which proves its Superior Value as a Crop Producer. For Economy and Best Results this is The Fertilizer for you to use. Ask your Merchant for it and insist on hav ing it We sell all other grades of Fertilizers. If your Merchant does not handle our goods, write us direct. The Macmurphy Company Successors to Th? Wilcox Sc Gibbs Goasio Co. Charleston, S. C Round Trip Tourist Fares Now in effect Via. Southern Rail way-Premier Carrier of the South. . Tickets on sale daily including April 30, 1912 with final limit re turning May 31, 1912. For com plete information as to schedules, sleeping car service etc., call on nearest Southern Railway ticket agent, or J. L. Meak, AGPA., Atlanta, Ga. F. L. Jenkins, TPA., Augusta, Ga. FIRE INSURANCE . Go to see Harting & Byrd Before insuring elsewhere. We represent the best old line com panies. IHarting & Byrd At the Farmers Bank, Edgefield Light Saw, Lathe and Shin gie Mills, Engines, Boilers, Supplies and repairs, Porta qle , Steam and Gasoline En gines, Saw Teeth, Files, Belts and Pipes. WOOD SAWS and SPLITTERS. Gins and Press Repairs. Try LOMBARD, AUGUSTA. GA. Money to Loan. With real estate security, for long time. Easy terms. ARTHURS. TOMPKINS Seed Which Succeed. Seed purchasing is a matter of confidence. We ask your confidence in Landreth's seed which have stood the test for 128 years. We solicit your orders for garden and flower seed. You cannot do better than bny Landreth's seed. W. E. Lynch ?fe Co. Almost A Miracle. One of the most startling changes ever seen in any man, according to W B Holsclaw, Clarendon, Tex., was effected years ago in his broth er. He had such a dreadful cough he writes, that all our family thought he was going into con sumption, but he began to use Dr. King's New Discovery, and was completely cured by ten bottles. Now he is sound and well and weighs 218 pounds. For many years our family has used this wonderful remedy for coughs and colds with excellent results. It's quick, safe, reliable and guaranteed. Price 50 cents and $1.00. Trial bottle free at Penn & Holstein's, W E Lynch & Co. Make the Old Suit, Look New We are better prepared than ever to do first-class work in cleaning and press ing of all kinds. Make your old pants or suit new by let ing us clean and press them. Ladies skirts and suits al so cleaned and pressed. Sat isfaction guaranteed. Edgefield Pressing Club WALLACE HARRIS PROP. Puts End to Bad Habit. Things never look bright to one with "theblues." Ten to one the trouble is a sluggish liver, filling the system with bilious poison, that Dr. King's New Life Pills would expel. Try them. Let the joy of bet ter feelings end "the blues." Best for stomach, liver and kidneys. 25c Penn & Holstein's, W E Lynch ? Co: The POOL of FLAME (Continued from Opposite Page) to Dravo** stateroom, which waa emp ty and would be so until the next change of watch. The succeeding hours dragged inter minably, quiet and unevent? ful. About six bells the moon got up, and Its rays, filtering through the heavy-ribbed glass of the skylight, 1,Ah, madame"!"" expostulated the" wanderer. "But what makes ye so positive I'd not turn tall and run away from any real danger?" She gave him a look that brimmed with mirth. "A man who ls a cow ard," she said slowly, "doesn't stand still and draw a revolver when a heavy knife is thrown at his head." "Quick told ye, madam?" "No, I saw-heard the quarrelling on the forward deck and got to the companionway in time to see what happened. Had you not been so in tent on your search for the knife, you would have seen me. As it was, I slipped below again without attracting attention" "But why?" "To get my revolver, monsieur le colonel." "'Twas naught but an accident-" "You do not believe that yourself, colonel dear; for my part, I-" "Well?" "Someone tried my door last night, after > u'd retired." "Ye are sure?" doubted O'Rourke, disturbed. "Quite. I was awake-thinking; I heard you come below and close your door at eight bells; long after there were footsteps-someone walking in his bare feet-in the saloon. Then the knob was turned, very gently. Fortunately, the door was bolted; someone put a shoulder to lt, but lt held fast. I caught up my revolver indeed and I am very reckless with it, Biri-and opened the door myself. The saloon was quite empty." "Ye shouldn't have risked that-" "I had to know, with so much at Stake," she said simply. O'Rourke endeavored to manufac ture a plausible and reassuring explan ation to the fact "Quick, Danny, or Dravos, mistaking their rooms-" "It was none of them. Captain Quick was on deck; I heard his voice almost simultaneously, surely I couldn't mistake that." She laughed. "Nor would your man or Mr. Dravos have been so stealthy, so instant to Beca pe." "But-but-" "My theory, if yon will have lt, is that mine enemy of the Panjnab ls one of the crew of the Ranee, mon sieur." Mrs. Pry noe made this statement as quietly as though she were comment ing on the weather. But her belief chimed so exactly with his own that O'Rourke was stricken witless and at a loss to frame a satisfactory refuta tion. He was silent for some mo ments, his Hps a thin hard line, a crinkle of anxiety between his brows. "ff yo'd only permitted me to attend to him-* he growled at length. Ton are right," she admitted, "but ?-I am desolated-the mischiefs done." "Faith, yest" he sighed dejectedly. His gase roved the deck and fastened upon the s erang. "It might be any one of them," he considered aloud. "Any one For instance, though the .erang1?** "Why d'ye suspect him more than another?" he demanded, startled. "Call lt feminine intuition, if you like. The man looks capable of any thing." "Yes. But sure, there's no telling at alL" "No telling," she concurred quietly. "We can but walt, watch, hope that I imagined the hand at my door." "There might be something in that" "I am neither nervous nor an im aginative woman." "At all events, 1*11 go bail 'twill not happen a second time." "How do you propose to prevent lt?" "Sure, the simplest way in the world. I myself will stand guard in the saloon, madam." "But no, monsieur; I can better af ford to lose a little sleep than have you forfeit your rest. Besides, I have Cecile." There ensued an argument without termination; he remained obdurate, she insistent Only the appearance of Quick on the stroke of four bells foroed them to shelve the subject. It was resumed at the dinner table and carried out in a light manner of banter for a time, dropped and for gotten, apparently by all but O'Rourke CHAPTER XXIV. The night fell clear as crystal and wonderfully bright with stars; the wind went down with the sun, then rose again refreshed and waxed to half a gale. At midnight O'Rourke, leaving the bridge, left the Ranee driv ing steadily through a racing sea, through a world noisy with the crisp rattle and crash of breaking crests. fortifying himself with strong cof fee, the adventurer settled himself ts a enair bj th? foot of the companion* way steps leading up from the tiny saloon that served as dining-room for all bot the crew of the tramp. From this position be commanded both en trances, pott and starboard, from the upper deck, as well a? the doors that flanked then on either hand, to the jui?rierjL occupied by Mrs. Prynns and filled the saloon with an opalescent shimmer that assorted Incongruously with the dull glow of the electric bulbs-dull, because there was some fthing wrong with the dynamo, accord ing to Dravos. O'Rourke, weary and yawning, watch ed the milky rainbow dance upon the half-opaque glass overhead for several moments before it conveyed to him a warning. Then immediately he aban doned his seat and stretched himself out upon a transom against the after bulkhead, whence he could see some thing less of the upper gangway, but sufficient for his purposes. For his chair had been beneath the skylight, and the wings of that were open for ventilation. " 'Tis safer here," he considered "There'll be-no dropping one of those long knives on me now, be premedi tated inadvertence, I'm thinking." He gaped tremendously. The peace of the nisht, the singing of the waves against the Ranee's sides, the deep throb and unbroken surge of her en gines, and the sustained, clear note of the monsoon in her wire rigging these combined with physical fatigue to soothe the man, to lull him Into Yow ? A Cry of Horror, Despair and Flage Stuck in the Wanderer's Tnroat. fantastic borderland of dreams. Yet such was his command of self that he would not yield to the caressing touch of drowsiness, but merely lay motion less and at rest, communing with his fancy. And that led him out of the sordid saloon of the Ranee across the seas that lay ahead of that ship's prow, to the fair land whither he was to convey the Pool of Flame. . . . Abruptly he leapt to his fee*, wide awake and raging. A blow was still sounding through the saloon a dull crash. Buried half way to the hilt In the bulkhead back of the transom a knife Quivered. In stinctively the wanderer's fingers had closed upou the grip of his revolver. He pulled the trigger almost before he realized what bad happened and sent a bullet winging toward a spot on the gangway above where a pair of long brown legs had been but now were not. On the heels of that fruit less shot he sent another, this time with no murderous intent, but to warn the captain on the bridge. Here at last wea an issue forced, animus proven, assassination indisputably at tempted. He sprang for the companionway, was half way up lt In a thought, hia heart hot within him, mouth dry with thirst for that Oscar's blood. Not a third time should the man escape his Judgment at the hands of O'Rourke, he swore. A stentorian roar saluted him as he gained the deck-a bellow choked and ending in a sickening gurgle. O'Rourke in a flash swung on his heel. Simultaneously he came face to face with Quick. He could have cried aloud in pity. The captain swayed before him, a massively built figure clothed all in white, huge anns trembling towards his head, revolver dropping from a nerveless hand, his chin fallen for ward on his chest, a stupid, weary emile on his face, and a dark and hid eous smear spreading swiftly over the bosom of his shirt A cry of horror, despair and rage stuck In the wanderer's throat Quick, who had hailed his appearance on the Ranee at Aden as a harbinger of good luck, had been foully murdered. His dominant emotion of the moment, an Intense and pitiful solicitude for the dying man, threw him off his guard. Under Its influence he forgot the des perate case of which this tragedy brought all aboard the Ranee, put out his arms, received the falling body, and let it gently to the deck. But in a trice he was alive again to his own peril. In the twinkling of an eye he saw a flash of light gliding to wards him with resistless impetus. Intuitively he swung to one side, to the right, and leapt to his feet At that the knife, a kris sinuous and keen, ran cold upon the flesh of his chest, slit through his shirt, caught in the thong that held the Pool of Flame, and tore out, leaving a flapping hole and scraping a hand's breadth of skin from his forearm. Heedless of this, only In fact subconsciously aware that the chamois bag had fallen to the deck, he caught at the hand that had wielded the kris; his fingers closed about the wrist, and, bracing himself, he swung the assassin off his feet So dcmg, his fingers slipped on the man's greasy skin, and he stum bled off his balance. His object however, had been ac complished. The murderer, hurled a yard or more through the air, fell and slid along the deck into a group of lascars, on? of whom, like a nine-pin. was knocked over and fell atop ct him. O'Rourke recovered and stepped for ward, revolver poised to administer the quietus to the murderer-an ami able Intention which was, however, doomed to frustration. With almost inconceivable swiftness the group of lascars had become a mere tangle of arms and legs, a melange of strug-i gling limbs and bodies. Where he? had thought to find a single prostrate! form, there were six struggling in con-i fusion on the deck. For a thought he stayed his finger! on the trigger, waiting to pick dut the. undermost and slay him first of all,,' unwilling, furthermore, to waste one, of the four invaluable cartridges ro-? maining in his revolver. And then-j unexpectedly the tragedy seemed over! and done with altogether. i From the bottom of the heap of bod-; les a terrible cry of mortal anguish| shrilled loud; and almost at once thei mob seemed to resolve into its orig-) lnal elements. Five lascars crawled,! arose, or flung themselves away from the sixth, who lay inert, prone, limbs) still twitching, a knife buried in hlsj back. For a thought the tableau held,) there In the pure brilliance of the| moonlight; the half a dozen standing) figures, O'Rourke a space apart from j the rest, and two bodies, the one facej down, Quick with a face to the stars,| each with its dread background; ai black stain that grew and spread slow ly upon the white, dazzling) planks. . . . Quietly the tallest of the lascars I moved forward, knelt and drew thej knife from the back of his dead fel-j low. He straightened up, facing j O'Rourke without a tremor, his eyesj afire, and wiped the blade of the kris J on his cummerbund. "Do not shoot, sahib" he said! smoothly in excellent English. "Do j not shoot, sahib, for it is I who have? avenged. This dog," and with his toe, be stirred the thing at his feet, "rani amok. Now he is dead." This was the serang who spoke.! O'Rourke eyed him coldly through a prolonged silence. At length, "Thatl seems quite evident," he admitted! coolly. "Pick up that body and throw| it overboard!" he commanded sharply.; In obedence to a sign from the se-j rang, two of the lascars seized the) body. A subsequent splash overside told the Irishman that his order had been carried out. But he heard it abstractedly, confronted as he was with a problem whose difficulty was, not to be underestimated, the problem embodied in the statuesque, impertur bable serang. It was hard to know what to do,( What to believe, what action to take., If he were right in his surmise, the se-i rang should rightly be shot down in stantly, without an instant's respite. Tet the heartless brutality upon which his theory was baaed made him hesi tate. It was difficult to believe that the serang had been able to accom-? plish what O'Rourke was inclined to credit him with; that he, the wielder of the kris, the murderer of Quick, thrown off his feet by the Irishman's attack, had deliberately Involved his fellows with him in his fall and profit ed by the confusion to slay one upon whom he could throw the blame for all that had happened. The weapon quivered in O'Rourke's' grasp. More than ono? in that brief debate he was tempted to shoot the fellow on suspicion. Tet. he held his hand; he could not be positive. With every circumstance against him, he might still be telling the truth. The whole horrible affair might boil down 'to nothing more than an insane crime of a crazy Malay, one who, as the se rang claimed, had "run amok." He had not made up his mind when his thoughts were given a new turn by a new complication, in the shape of Mrs. Prynne herself. That lady came up the companion steps with no apparent hesitation, no fear or appre-j hen sion; quietly and confidently alert, on the other hand, she was visibly armed and prepared against danger In whatever form she might have to en counter it She came directly to the adventurer,! without so much as a glance for the] group of lascars or the grim evidencesj of tragedy upon the deck. O'Rourkei shut his teeth with exasperation.' Whatever he decided to believe of the serang, whether his judgment said of the man, "Quilty," or "Not Quilty," he dared risk nothing with the woman present He could not tell what 'hell of murder and mutiny he might not let loose upon the Ranee, did he makeJ one ill-advised or hasty move. Alone,, he could have faced the situation with! equanimity; with the woman by hlsj side, he felt as though handcuffed. "You are hurt, Colonel O'Rourke?"! "A mere scratch, madam-an inch! of skin shaved off me arm. Be good] enough to return to the saloon, waken] Danny and send him to me." She ignored the curtness of his toneJ even as she Ignored his wish. "Whati has happened?" she demanded, rang?) lng herself by his side. "Who is that) -there on the deck?" Her voice ris-{ lng a note, foreboded hysteria. .: "Quick-stabbed. I didn't want yej to see. A lascar ran amok, cut down] the captain, waa killed himself-kind ness," tho Irrepressible humorist] broke out," of our little brown brother] the serang." ? His eyes never left the latter; not an instant did he take his attention from the cluster of dark figures; he was more than every ready to defend himself should they stake any overt ' move, deeming his attention distract ed. "What will you, do XL _> (TO BE CONTINUION