The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, August 01, 1912, Page SIX, Image 6
I The Per! J
} of Flame j
f i?W?i i
H ? :
: 1
i By |
LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE i
. Illustrations by Ellsworth Young .
i. >;
* ?/*]' r ^ J
Cowri^jot lviJ, by i.
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 driving
steadily throueh a racins: sea
through a world noisy with the crisp
rattle and crash of breaking crests.
Fortifying himself with strong coffee,
the adventurer settled himself in
a chair by the foot of the companionway
8.ops leading up from the tiny
saloon that served as dining-room foi
all b : the crew of the tramp. From
thi6 position he commanded both entrances,
port and starboard, from the
upper deck, as well as the doors that
flanked them on either hand, to the
quarters occupied by Mrs. Prynne and
to Dravos' stateroom, which was empty
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,
fill*. : saloon with an. opalesceni
si;.. :e. that assorted incongruouslj
with the dull glow of the electrk
bulbs?dull, because there was some
thing 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
olo&ed upon the grip of his revolver.
He pulled the trigger almost before
he realized what had happened and
jent a bullet winging toward a spot
on the gangway above where a pair
af long brown legs had been but now
were not. On the heels of that fruitless
shot he 6ent another, this time
with no murderous intent, but to
warn the captain on the bridge. Here
at last was an Issue foroed, animus
proven, assassination indisputably attempted.
He sprang for the companionway,
was half way up it in a thought, his
heart hot within him, mouth dry with
thirst for that lascar's blood. Not ^
third time should the man escape his
luagment at the hands of O'Rourke,
he swore.
A stentorian roar saluted him as be
gained the deck?a bellow choked and
ending In a sickenirg 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 ants trembling towards
Ms head, revolver dropping from a
nerveless hand, his chin fallen for?
A V. f.-. ctnrvirl WoflTV
Will U Uli lii<3 VylJVCVj U iJVU^'<Uf vyk? ^
smile on his face, and a dark and hideous
Bmear 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
hick, 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 desperate
case of which this tragedy
brought all aboard the Ranee, put out
his arms, reoelved the falling body,
and let It gently to the deck.
But In a trioe he was alive again to
k
moments before it conveyed to nun a
warning. Then immediately he aban
doned his scat and stretched himseli
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 hi.?
chair had been beneath the skylight,
and the wings of that were open for
ventilation.
" 'Tib safer here," he considered
"There'll be no dropping one of those
long knives on me now, be premeditated
inadvertence. I'm thinking."
He gaped tremendously. The peace
of the night, the singing of the waves
against the Ranee's sides, the deep
throb and unbroken surge of her engines,
and the sustained, clear note
of the monsoon in her wire rigging?
these combined with physical fatigue
to soothe the man. to lull Mm into
fantastic borderland of dreams. Yet
such was his command of self that he
would not yield to the caressing touch
of drowsiness, bat merely lay motionless
and at rest, communing with his
fancy. And that led him out of the
sordid saloon of the Ranee across the
aeas 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 feet, 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. Initinctively
the wanderer's fingers had
nis own pern, in tne twinkling o: an
eye he saw a flash of light glidirsr towards
him with resistless impetus.
Intuitively he swung to one side, to
the right, and leapt to his feet. At
that the knife, a kris slr.uous and
i keen, ran cold upon the flesh of his
' chest, slit through his shirt, caught
*1 the thong that held the Pool of
Flame, and tore out, leaving a flapping
I 1?sn1/y eeronincr a hnnrVfc hrAAilth
. UU1U OUU OV-JUJ'JUQ V? ??
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 krls; his fingers
1 closed about the wrist, and, bracing
himself, he swung the assassin off his
feet. So doing, his fingers slipped on
the man's greasy skin and he stumbled
off his balance.
I His object, however, had been accomplished.
The murderer, hurled a
yard or more through the air. fell and
slid along t??e deck into a group of
lascars, one of whom, like a nine-pin,
was knocked c-.v . t... ..... atop of
him
O'Rourke re - . v. : pe: for(
ward, revolve:- p .; : to administer
the quietus to '1. 1 :er?an a; liable
intention v wos. hov.evcr,
doomed to frustration. With almost
| inconceivable swiftness the eroup cf
lasears had become a mere tangle of
arras ana legs, a meiange ui snuggling
limbs and bodies. Where he
' had thought to find a single prostrate
form, there were six struggling in con.
fusion on the deck.
t For a thought he stayed his finger
on the trigger, waiting to pick out the
t undermost and slay him first of all,
unwilling, furthermore, to waste one
' of the four invaluable cartridges reL
raaining in his revolver. And then?
unexpectedly the tragedy seemed over
. and done with altogether.
From the bottom of the heap of bod.
lea a terrible cry of mortal anguish
. shrilled loud; and almost at once the
mob seemed to resolve Into Its original
elements. Five lascars crawled,
> arose, or flung themselves away from
t the sixth, who lay inert, prone, limbs
j still twitching, a knife buried in his
. 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
. tlie rest, and two bodies, the one face
V( r? fnAA t Ka cto ro
i uw v> li, ^uicrw mu a iavr lv_/ luu ouhd,
[ sach with its dread background; a
L black stain that grew and spread slow.
ly upon the white, dazzling
> planks. . . .
Quietly the tallest of the lascars
. moved forward, knelt and drew the
knife from the back of his dead fellow.
He straightened up, facing
O'Kourke without a tremor, his eyes
aflre, and wiped the blade of the kris
3n his cummerbund.
"Do not shoot, sahib," he said
, smoothly in excellent English. "Do
. aot! shoot, sahib, for it is I who have
avenged. This dog," and with his toe
, a? stirred the thing at his feet, "ran
amok. Now he is dead."
This was the 6erang who spoke.
O'Rourke eyed him coldly through a
, prolonged silence. At length, "That
seems quite evident," he admitted
coolly. "Pick up that body and throw
, It overboard!" he commanded sharply.
In obedence to a sign from the serang,
two of the lascars seized the
body. A subsequent splash overside
told the Irishman that his order had
been carried out. But be heard It
abstractedly, confronted as he was
with a problem whose difficulty was
not to be underestimated, the problem
embodied in the statuesque, imperturbable
serang.
It was bard to know what to do,
what to believe, what action to take.
If he were right in hi3 surmise, the serang
should rightly be shot down in
stantly, without an instant's respite.
Yet the heartless brutality upon which
his theory was based made him hesitate.
It was difficult to believe that
the serang had been able to accomplish
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 profited
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 once in that brief
debate ho was tempted to shoot the
fellow on suspicion. Yet he held his
hand; he could not bo positive. With
every circumstance against him, ho
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 serang
claimed, had "run amok."
He had not made up Lis 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 apprehension;
quietly and confidently alert,
on the other hand, she was visibly
armed and prepared against danger In
whatever form she might have to encounter
it.
She came directly to the adventurer,
without so much as a glacco for the
Crnnn lac/?Qrc nr tVifcA crrlro
of tragedy upon the deck. O'Rourk?
shut Ms teetli with exasperutlen.
Whatever he decided to telleve of tho
eerang, whether his Judgment said of
the man, "Guilty," or "Not Guilty," 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 make
one ill-adviBed or hasty move. Alone,
i he could have fa^ed the situation with
; equanimity; with the woman by hla
side, he felt as though handcuffed.
, "You are hurt. Colonel O'Rourke?"
A mere scratch, madam?an inch
of skin shaved off rne arm. Be good
enough to return to the saloon, waken
Danny and send him to me." '
She ignored the curtness of his tone,
even as she ignored his wish. "What
has happened?" she demanded, ranging
herself by his side. "Who is that
?there on tie deck?" Her voice rising
a note, foreboded hysteria.
"Quick?stabbed. I didn't want ye
to see. A lascar ran amok, cut down
the captain, was killed himself?kind- j
ness," the 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 I
was more than every ready to defend j
himself should they make any overt |
move, deeming his attention distract- |
ed.
"What will you do?"
"How can I say? Do ye, for the
love of God, get below and leave me !
to wH'.i tn~. "" 'n .
fashion."
"Which," ?he r. ' c "iLl; , "is
precisely what I v.:.'... v t
"If that's the co- h." he : I brusquely.
"have the ki\dne.;s to hand me
| the revolver by the chain's side, and
i ?ye mighi see if 'he poor fellow still
i lives."
He heard a quick rustle of skirts
. and the wo man's hand closed over his,
i pressing into his palm the weapon he
i had desired. As promptly, without
further words, she turned to Quick,
j The adventurer deliberated briefly,
i while she bent over the captain, maki
lng a hurried examination. "He is
| badly wounded," O'Rourke heard her
; say, as he arrived at his decision, "but
| not dead."
"Praise God for that! . . . I i
must ask ye, madam, to back me up. j
It is necessary to clear the decks. Are 1
ye ready?" He saw, out of the tail !
of his eye, that she had sprung to her 1
feet "Now, ye curs," he thundered,
with a menacing pistol In either hand,
"get forward, the lot of ye. Move, ye
blackguards!"
They went expeditiously, crowding
between the deck-house and the rail,
huddling together as if for mutual protection.
The serang was the last to
I move, and went reluctantly, or seemed
to.
Yet that was no time to judge him
i for a minor fault. O'Rourke herded
I the pack before him, watched them
; Bcramble down the ladder to the forej
deck, then backed to the spot where
' the woman stood above the captain,
j His arm was paining him somewhat,
I with the irritating, stinging ache that
| such wounds produce, and he thrust
i one revolver Into his pocket, clasping
t a hand above the hurt.
In a flash realization of his loss
I came to him; he clutched the rail with
; a cry. The Pool of Flame, his sacred
trust, was gone! His eyes searched
the deck wildly, but found no trace of
the round leather bag with its precious
burden. Despair gripped his heart
In a clutch of ice, and for a space the
ship reeled about him. . . .
He found himself gazing blankly into
the woman's solicitous eyes. "What
Is it? What is it?" he heard her voice
repeating breathlessly. He knew that
his own Hps moved for some seconds
without sound as he strove to answer
her. The words, when they came,
should have* been quite unintelligible
to her; he realized this almost as soon
as he had uttered them: "The Pool
of Flame!"
Then he stumbled forward, crying
aloud for the serang. Half-way to the
ladder he halted; that individual's
head and ehoulders were lifting above
the level of the deck. O'Rourke covered
him and called him aft as he
again retreated to the scene of the
tragedy.
Had be been in a condition to think
coherently, he might have acted more
prudently. But maddened, he was
able to grasp bat one fact; that the
Pool of Flame was gone and must be
recovered at whatever hazard.
(TO BE CONTINUED.
Indian Killed on Track.
Near Rochelle, 111, an Indian went
to sleep on a railroad track and was
killed by the fast express. He paid
for his earelessnees with his life.
Often it's that way when people {
neglect coughs and colds. Don't '
risk your life when prompt use of i
! l)r King's New Discovery will cure '
them and so prevent a dangerous ,
throat or lung trouble. "It com- ;
pletely cured me, in a short time, of \
a terrible cough that followed a severe
attack of Grip." writes J R
Watts, Floydada, Tex, "and I regained
15 pounds in weight that I
had lost." Quick, safe, reliable and
guaranteed. 50c and $1.00. Trial
bottle free at M L Allen's.
COAL! COAL! '
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Don't wait until the cold \
blasts of winter are upon you ;
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I have several carloads or- j
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have your order. The sooner
the better.
L, G, MONTGOMERY,
7-i8-tf KINGSTREE, S. C.
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