Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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rv roc 4 ? - 11 Copyright. 1913. b, A novelization of tho photo play mitted to th? scenario department o contest during December and January came from many sections in the Unit< as well as thousands of amateurs toel This instalment of this ro mantic novel and absorbing narrative will be shown in mo tion pictures at The Casinc Theatre on Thursday afternoor and night. $10,000 For 1,000 Words or Less For an Idea For a Sequel to "THE DIAMOND FROM THE SKY" The American Film Manufacturing Company's Ricturized Romantic Novc! In Chapters. This contest is open to any man, woman or child who is not connected, directly or indirectly, with the Film Company or the newspapers publishing the continued story. No literary ability is necessary to qualify as a contestant. Y?.. i--- '< J - vu u v. UUVIWU IU .ltt UIC HJIIUIHU'U photo play in the theaters where it will be shown to read the story as it runs every week, and then send in your suggestion. Contestants must confine their contributions for the sequel to 1,000 tjords or less. It is the idea that is wanted. .1 | ? SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS. A bitter feud hrs existed between Colonel Arthur Stanley aiul his yousin, Judge l.amar Stanley. The feud has Lech oil' gendered in family jca'ousy yver nn heirloom, the diamond from the sky, that was found in a fallen meteor by An adventurer ancestor. Also, the succession the Stanley earldom in ICngland may come [0 a:i American Stanley. When a duughter is born to Colonel st??iley of the eldest branch of the- Stanleys in .America and the jnotlicr of the child ul Its blri'.i, tiie chagrined colonel Jjuys r\ newborn gypsy boy and s\%')stiIt'.m c\i heir. Three years later the gypfcy mother, bavins had no jn tMp bargain, steals the eolo.heVs hUle daughter, being re? red hi secret, and Knyee her t?un son unddeUed as lho heir. The gyp ; sy mother abo obtained possession of the diamond from the sky, and a document holds the Stanley secret of the false lk'cu'. She rears the little girl, ISether Stanley, as her own and grows to love nor. When Esther is grown a bentttiful young girl, Hagar, now gypsy queen, returns to Virginia with her. She has n wild plan that Dr. Dee. the late Colonel Stanley's old friend, may now adopt Esther. as originally Intended. Her hope also is that her son, the supposed Arthur Stanley 2d, niav fall In love with Esther and thus the innocent gir\ nmy become , by marriage what she is by birth?mistress of Stanley hall. Dr. Dee adopts Esther, but also demands that Hagar turn over to his custody the diamond from the sky. Dr. Dee also informs Hagar that her son, the supposed Arthur Stanley 2d, is a proflir and not worthy of Esther, but Hagar hopes for the best and with her people departs. Arthur Stanley does fall (n love with Esther ami so does bis boon companion. Blair Stanley, the cousin who would be the rightful male heir of Stanley were the Stanley secret known. In stealing the diamond Blair causes the dcat)t$>f the doctor. Outside ts Arthur, serenading Esther. CHAPTER V. i y Tho Silent Witness. CAVtiHT like tt rat in a trap, with Arthur Stanley outside the window serenading the dead as well as the living, and Esther stirring o'erhead, Blair Stanley nerves liimselt' with a supreme effort and turns ilie uitoh <>t the study door uud steals down t lie darkened hallway. lie unbolts the front door. and. closing it softly behind liiiu. as though lie wciuld shut out the face of the dead man, Hlair slips across the broad piazza like a phantom of the night I tut. Arthur has heard the grating of the bolt, the soft opening of the door, and has stepped from the side to the front of the house, hoping it is Esther who comes in answer to his serenade and to receive his contrite pleadings for forgiveness, lie reaches out to embrace the gentle girl, only to find he lias clasped the stalwart, struggling frame of a man The moon breaks through a cloud as Ids prisoner struggles, and its -rays illuminate the face of lilair Stanley. "What are yon doing here, coining out of Dr. Leo's house at this hour?" whispers 'Arthur, tensely. "Keep quiet, you fool!" EJair Stanley hisses, like a snake. "A girl's good name is at -stake." As Arthur staggers hack in horror at the? shameful inference. Blair Stanley with n rapid movement draws his re volvqr and fires. He would do a double murder and win an earldom and the diamond from tlfe sky, if he can escape without detection.* Hut the quick arm of Arthur throws up the pistol and as Blair llres he - wrenches, the weapon from him. To avoid the shame ami scandal, even of the inference of the Imujc speaking Blair, the frenzied Ar ^ /for Z. Ali CA.RDBLL V Hoy L. PfcCardell selected as the best in over 19,000 sub* f the Chicago Tribune in a $10,000 prize The manuscripts in this competition ?d States and Canada. Authors of note ( part. Iff "What are you doing here?" thur thugs 11iin down the pathway and , down tin* silent village street, as tlie 1 cocks are crowing, presaging the com ing of the dawn. ranting ana struggling, the cousins sliunhle off fhe village highway and into the little village ! graveyard. Their feet sink into a j mound of soft earth by an open and newly dug grave. Standing panting | j and facing each other with rage and hate in their hearts and 011 tin ir faces, i the young men pause a moment in their ' mad struggle. Then Art!?*- brings out I ida ov.'h pistol and the long white silk j handkerchief that protrude * from his | jL)rrtp?^ pocket. ' For \? Ii.ii you have said about ! Esther, either you or I must die,'' j Arthur says. "Take oMe cud of t'ds handkerchief and stand across this j open grave. Hold (ho hanukeueiiief in your left hand, as I hold this turner of it. Now lake your pistol, and when 1 count to 'Three!' raise and lire, and tlie ^no of us loft alive will pull the dead man into the grave"!'' Arthur counts "One!" when the now l'carful murderer essays to tire. Hut the watchful Arthur is too quick for hiin. His pistol speaks lirst, and, in! stinoUvoly tugging the handkerchief i as he tires, Arthur drags the bleeding Blair into the grave, prone on his face, Arthur leaps Tnto the grave after his fallen foe and tears open his shirt to see if the heart still beats, and there, on the breast of Blair Stanley, gleams in tlie tuoou rays the evil glitter of the diamond from the sky. ' Arthur Stanley had known its every aspect, for the Stanley archives are full of it, in print and manuscript, pic tured and described. "So there it has been, in the keeping of my cousin!" lie mutters, and hardly realizing what he does, except the baleful gem is bis by every right, lie tears it from the neck of the tigurc in the grave and clambers out and stumbles on his way. Beside a cross, white and majestic 1 1 in the moonlight, lie halts. The moo;: j i shines on the diamond in his bloody 1 i j hands as he stands by the grave where I lies, as he believes, bis sainted mother I Then, feeling the brand of Cain is on nis brow, Arthur Stanley 1M stumbles I on, still clutching the diamond from Lno sKy in his bloody hands. In ilio new dug grave Blair Stanley j , moaned ami stirred. The wound in I , his forehead had been a glancing one. | only sullieient to stun him. and now as he came to consciousness in the dummy depths of the grave his lirst impulse was to clutch wildly at his blood stained and disheveled shirt bosom. The diamond from the shy was gone: The death of the good old doctor had been all in vain. And Blair Stanley also tied beneath the moon, bootless | and in truth blood guilty. 1 At Stanley hall Arthur gained access | to the library and shuddered again as ! he saw the stains on his hands and on j the great jewel that seemed to glean; j all the brighter for them in the glare j of t he library lamp. It was not to show the diamond | from the sky that all men yearned for; it was to have it. to possess it. even in secret that caused them to lie. to swindle and even to grope through blood lor it. Well had the late Colonel Simile;. I.......... >1... I... I I.I..1 i' .1- ' i\ 11 vi w it i lie i i?i i v i til ms:ui\ <>i i 11 (< 111; i luond Miat 11juI fallen to tho lYet of his adventurer ancestor in a meteor. The Stanley "charm against harm" it was called, and now look what harm it had already done! Arraying brother against brother, father against, son, in the past, it had broken women's hearts the while, and now a false heir held it against.ii breast that ached in anguish. Art buy felt Instinctively that the dia inoiid from the sky was responsible for Hlnir's Impugning the good name THE HO&EY HE&i ?h kwwi e.sttier. gooj old l>r. Lc?'? fair waril. but Arthur did nut know that the good doctor lay cold iu death at the hands of Blair Stauley. The wild thought. the wilder hope, that he might go elsewhere and under a new name, still holding to the diamond from the sky. rehabilitate himself and then seek out Esther In secret and wed her now possessed Ar tliur. Among Arthur's many extravagances which the lax administration of estates in Virginia permitted a scu peg race heir was the buying of a costly French automobile. It was a day when uutomobiles were rarities and luxuries, and the young spendthrift of Stanley hall had preened himself with the thought that he would be the first to own un automobile in all Fairfax county. Arthur reasoned that Blair, who he supposed was lying dead in the grave that had been digged for another, would not be found till perhaps noon. Even then they might not connect his tragic death with the broken guitar and the .other sigus of struggle in the doctor's Meanwhile the dawn had come and I Ksther. who had been aroused at the I j pistol shots, was in groat agitation and I alarm. Comforted and encouraged by the first glimpse of dawn, she had ! descended to the lower hall of the house. The door of the doctor's study stood ajar and she glanced within. ! There in the dim light of the morning snn filtering through the window shades site saw the doctor in Ids i dressing gown stretched limply across a table. She touched his cheek to rouse hint and. found it cold. Those pale lips, kindly even in death, could j never keep their promise to tell her j who and what she was "on the inor ; row." Here it was the morrow, and! the lips that could tcdl were cold in death. Nancy, the doctor's colored servant, was already astir in the kitchen when Kst Iter's cries brought her to the scene; ! on the heels of the housekeeper came i au'x. * no doctor s colored horse boy. ! After ihe frenzy of their fright had subsided, the negro boy hud run through the neighborhood arousing it with news of the tragedy. At tirst Esther and the neighbors had believed the doctor's death had been from natural causes, the peaceful passing in of old age. Hut the disorder of the room, the rilled cash box on tlie table, the chisel marked drawer of the old bookcase, and the opened window, against which the. drawn shade flap 1 pod in the early morning air, mutely told their tale of theft and murder. The sheriff had been sent for and already an eager neighbor had found a crushed guitar in the dooryard and the ! trampling of the feet of what appeared several struggling men in the flower 1 i beds that bordered the walk to the ' j She Found Him Cold In Donth. doctor's gate. The footprints were of well shod men of snmll 11 ml shapely feet, it was reported. No passing rough marauders, no outlaw negro desporadoes had part in the murder and robbery in the doctor's study, nor had any such strubied in deadly combat in his garden, it was whispered. The matter was mystery as well as murder, and j the morbid neighbors gathered in and i around the cottage ol' the dead man > and whispered greedily. Meanwhile the dazed and bleeding lilnir Stanley bad a strange home eom Sag in the night. ilis mother, that [hoiiw, (.'oki woman, worthy ma to of 1110 grim judge who had perished strangely in a wild mountain pass nearly a generatioti a gone, loved her son seemingly only through her cold a nihil ions. "Vou do not know when a day may come that you may he in a position to save the life of the heir of Stanley," J she had said often significantly. IJIalr understood his mother well. it was known hy all the Stanleys | that the diamond front the sky had vanished strangely the night Colonel Stanley had expired alone in Ids library, this preceding hy a few days only the tragic death of Judge Stanley in the mountain pass, also, it was thought, alone. This was eighteen years ago, hut the Stanley feud was not dead with its protagonists, those elder men of that elder day. It slumbered in the bosom of the younger generation. It smoldered hidden, yet burning not the less, in the bosom of the Judge's taciturn widow. Itlnir's mother. She had always believed with n bitter suspicion that encompassed all of the long dead Colonel Stanley's friends fHat Dr. lx*e had . taken the diamond from the sky in i ' 1 - tLD, OONWAY, 8 0. (he eoufuslon attending the colonel'f sudden demise. L>r. IA?e was a relative of Judge Stanley's widow, (or all the bettei families of Fairfax were of kith and kin. The Judge's widow believed the doctor held the great diamond in bin secret custody If for nothing else than to keep It from the hands of the judge's family through any legal process they might attempt during the minority of Arthur Stanley 2d. lleuce It was that when the nerve shattered Blair, with ashen face and bloody brow, confessed to his waiting mother that he had seen the diamond In Dr. Lee's aged hands she was not surprised. When he half incoherently ! admitted to her that the old doctor had died in the struggle for the diumond she expressed 110 compunction for the doctor's death or revulsion ut the deed of her son that caused it. But when ho 'told her that Arthur SUsinlnv ??? * * vji ? n*r Wilt' lilt* null siuou netweoii them and all their ambitious desires, bad* been in the grasp of Blair did her mood ol' austere interest change to cold fury. "You need not add your reproaches to my own." panted her son. "Hut it was luck, the devil's luck, that all at Stanley hall possess. I would have killed him. It was in my mind. In my heart. "Hut he wrested the pistol from my hand as though from the hand of a child, and he dragged me out of the yard, down the deserted village street to the graveyard to kill me and rob tne of the diamond with the ease of a giant." "Well." said his mother, "we must hope for another, better chance. Meanwhile if you are sure that your struggles were not seen you had better lie hidden until I can learn what suspicions are aroused. If von arc missed i will say you are gone to Richmond. I!vcn if Arthur Stanley hours no moro of you ho will think still that he has slain you. lie will keep silent." CHAPTER VI. ! * I Wanted For Murder. THE (lush or hope came bade to the aslion face of Blair Stan- j ley. "1 remember now," lje ! said; "we trampled upon his guitar in the doctor's garuen in our struggles, lie will he accused of cans- j imr t hii /Innt np'u f It V ?, 1 11 ? V?V ??UV< ? "U ?' *?l believe him if he in turn blames me? "I will keep hidden, as you say, mother. The fact that he has the diamond and the doctor had it in his keeping up to his death will damn him. : Thinking me dead, he may tly?who ' knows?" I lis mother nodded, and then, seeing the dawn was breaking by the growing light outside, she crossed the room to Hit? old fashioned lireplace and pressed 11 hidden spring. With wondering eyes Blair saw the whole fireplace from hearthstone to celling turn as one center pivot and swing half out into the roo!!} ami half back into a great recess 1 in the wall. "A hiding place built by your Tory I great-grandfather," said his mother. 1 "Fairfax was all for the Amcri -an j firms during the revolution, all except vour irreat-irriiiidfjit!u?r \V;w!ii?i?rt/,,? i Accused liim of hiding and harboring spies for King (ieorge; but. though they searched here, they never found them." she added grimly. In the niche behind the chimney Blair noted a small bench, or pallet, a reading lamp of old design, and sundry . other crude comforts. "Vou will find it comfortable j enough." remarked his mother. For one of the few times Blair could i remember his proud, cold mother soft- I ened. She gave her attention again to the slight wound above the temple. , bound it gently with her handkerchief, j kissed him. and sighed. The unhappy Blair sobbed and im J pulsivelv embraced his mother. For one brief moment he faltered, and then his mother pointed in silence to the ! hiding place and be stepped within. ! the great chininoypieee swung into place, and he was in scinidarkness, bidden and secure. The old procedures of the "(Towner's quest" still held strong in Fairfax county, Virginia. At the doctor's cottage the first expression of authority by tin* sheriff was that nothing should be touched in tlie study where the doctor lay dead oil the table "till the coroner came." The broken guitar had been handed the sheriff. It could not lie denied that when Arthur had been with the young people on the dwtor's porch earlier In the night lie had not had the guitar. It was known he and the doctor had had high words earlier in the day over the fact that Arthur, who had squandered his means, had added to his other extravagances by ordering from ! abroad a costly French racing automobile. / But the return of I la gar, conscience stricken also, after eighteen long years, the return of Ilagar again, bringing with her the sweet and blooming Esther, the rightful heir to the patrimony the gypsy changeling was squandering. and the arrangement for her adoption by I)r. Dee, as had long been intended, had wrought a right about face in the doctor's attitude toward the reckless, supposititious young master ot Stanley hail. It had also wrought a great change in the character of Arthur Stanley. From the first meeting. I,IV..I ? ... I I... -.1 ?? II II li'M-ll .\1 111(11' 11)1(1 ilDllII' doncd his wild and spendthrift ways. Then. too. the rivalry for Esther's affections with his cousin, Blair, had steadied Arthur, lie realized lie loved Esther, and ho had resolved to bo worthy of her. As for Esther, in the midst of <le pressing, morbid turmoil that followed the discovery of the doctor's death in his study, she had moved as one in a' ,s'^n | * \* "t" . .' ' " ,"'< -' v4> N ^>/ 'I * * A.' \^ I psm^ ? * .? .- * x| v , w< . > *4 i lie viypsy, Hr.gar, Tolling Fortunes. niest unhappy <lroain. Under the cold, suspicious eyes of lilnir Stanley's niotlier. Esther luid felt herself en interloper. The .indue s widow hud arrived upon the scene as soon as site had been sent for. Although her relations with the doctor had been distant and constrained for years, yet the judge's widow was next of kin. With the usual delay characteristic of the easy going doctor, lie liucl delayed making out the legal j* t . I iviwjMiun papers ior i\,siuer. lie UUtl only insisted that she he called Kstlier i/oo. What her real name wits the polite Virginians had not asked, but it was. whispered that it was Harding. Wnen questioned by the puzzled sheriff as to what procedure lie should follow after the identification of the broken guitar, found by the footprints in the flower beds, the judge's widow had coldly replied, "I>o your duty!" and the sheriff, with Ids deputy, set out for Stanley hall to apprehend Arthur Stanley lid on suspicion of the murder of Dr. Henry Lee. At their parting there had been one gift of llagar's that Esther had since loviiu'ly cherished, it was a pair of carrier pigeons. "Take these, my dear daughter." Ilagar had said. "If you are ever in trouble and need nte send a message by the birds. Their homing place is uui m h'hihv.vdii^ in I tie i*< lie ridge. Even if I am not there when the message comes, some of our tribe will be. They will know where 1 am and fetch me the word." So Esther, under the open espionage of Blair's mother, had taken one of the pigeons from its cage on the porch ami had hastily written the message to send by this aerial carrier to Ilagar. The message read briefly, "Coiue at once, dear mother; I need you." She simply signed it "Esther." From her lattice window she released her feathered messenger. It Hew swiftly to the west, straight as the arrow dies. The sheriff and Ids deputy were not long in reaching Stanley hall. They alighted with a businesslike clatter, and the sheriff clumped up the steps and across the wide, hospitable portico and made the great iron knocker wake the echoes of the silent mansion. With an indicative gesture of his thumb he had sent his deputy to guard the rear. Joe, the natty and worldly wise colored man servant of the until recently wild young master of Stanley hall, was wondering at the impudent urgency of the clamor that had aroused him as he reached the bottom of the staircase, when he stood stock still, shaken for once out of ids usual superior airs and *clf possession, to behold Ids young master, wild eyed and disheveled, rush from the library and seize him, ox\-claiming as he did so: "Don't open that | door! 1 have killed a hum. and they are after me!" With chattering teeth and shaking knees the erstwhile dandy darky clung for support hi the weakness of his fright to the pedestal of the balustrade at the foot of the old colonial staircase. Still the sheriff hammered at the door, crying stenloriously, "Open in the name of the law!" and still the frightcue 1 darky clung to the balustrade, divided in his terror between the awful authority of the law that he was disobeying and In fear of the fate this till now sophist Icuted servitor had felt for his young master. One glance front the low French windows that looked from the library upon the grounds at the back of Stanley ball and Arthur was aware of the watchful deputy, with drawn pistol. At this juncture the automobile agent from Hlehuioml came with lionktili? Iinrn nr* flu. Hi?l* *-??* ???? "'ul .-r. ?M/ v??*. ? ?!????/ Willi UIIK Ul the tirst automobiles that had ever essayed tiie roads of Fairfax. With the agent, who proudly drove the red Fre 11 Oh racer, was an oily and grimy garage mechanic driving a low, old but ! powerful one seated garage handy car ! battered nud scarred froiu oiucb bard service. but still strong. Hpetnly aud dependable. Tlu> sheriff li:imniered aud kicked cnuvaillugly at the stout. great w hi to door as these "newfangled contraptions." as be called them', drove up tt* I the portico steps. "1 am the sheriff," ^ lie explained to the wouderlng auto- ^ mobile man. "I am after a man for murder, and 1 summon you to aid me." % The taciturn garage mechanic brought a heavy Iron Jack from his battered old car. and he and the sheriff soon had the stout oak door shattering beneath the battering rani blows they dealt it with this heavy Instrument of Iron. As the door gave way Arthur dartod from the library, past the s|ill quaking negro in the hallway and Into the illn- + Ing room. IIo passed" through (ho dining room Into tlio conservatory at Its back that overlooked, as did the library. the grounds at the rear of Htan.ey hall. Ilut here his way was blocked by Iron and glass, there was no egress from the conseravtdry save through the dining room. As lie turned to retrace his steps the sheriff, with the frightened automobileman at his back, appeared at the door ? of the conservatory with leveled re- T volver and demanded Arthm's sur2 render. Arthur's reply was to seize a heavy rustic chair and with one swinging, sweeping blow thrust aside the leveled revolver and then smash the heavy glass and the metal frames of the rear wall ?>{' .!k? conservatory, lie leaped linhnrt through the aperture thus imule ami lied around the corner of the house, followed by a If fusillade of shots from tho <lu?rHv - - - - ??a i\? his deputy At 11ic? front of tln? house stood the t\vo automobiles deserted. The now French racer stood throbbing under po^ver :H the portals of Stanley hall. The excited dealer had not thought * further of the Hue new machine when he heard the sheriff's quick summons for assistance Pile more phlegmatic A and prncticai mechanic had turned off the power of the old garage car when ^ he had brought the sheriff tile Jack to smash t he door. Arthur jumped into the throbbing now racer lie had little thought when he had ordered it in a tit of reckless extravagance that its first service for hiui would he in a need like this, lie sensed the use of its levers, and in the instinct of fear and self preservation, a it may have been chance that aided" \ him, hut the machine hounded away on highest speed, and Arthur turned the steering win el and made the turn to the gateway safely. lie gave one glance hack and saw the mechanic endeavoring to start tjlio other car. while the sheriff stamped and swore futilely. Whether it was that the old dependable car failed for once to respond or whether K wit* be- ^ cause the sporting Instinct In thegrimy mechanic was strong, and he hoped for a Jong, stern chase of n practiced driver in an old car after a rank amateur in a new French racer, in either case the old car was some minutes in responding to Ids efforts to He Smashed His Way Through thei Conservatory Window. ' fl start it. Arthur had read enough of W automobiles to know it were well for 1 him if lie paused in his flight that lie did hot stop tlie engine. I/joking back again and seeing lie was not as yet pursued, a lit of desperate recklessness Encouraged him in the resolve to pause and bid farewell to Esther. By lids time all but a few the curious neighbors had gone, and Esther was at the gate engaged in hanging a white wreath upon it in memory of her dear old friend. The meeting, I lie parting, were brief, dramatic and passionate. There was 110 time for explanations 011 either side. Arthur held the fair girl to his heart for one brief moment and pledged ids love and faith for her, and then was t gone. Now came ttie other ear in a cloudy of dust. On spoil the pursued. Now at the railroad crossing the one armed watchman gave his warning flag. The gates are down, a long freight train is thundering up. At ids highest speed Arthur takes the gates, that smash and splinter at the Impact of his sWift machine. He is gone, and the freight train blocks pursuit. Then pride has it* fall. Around a bend of the road workmen are digging a great culvert. On one side is u sloping bank of the river. On the other side the embankment of the road bed. across which the open j culvert cuts. Oiie'glnhce aho\vs Arthur V >