Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 August 1893 — AN IDYL OF HONOLULU. [ARTICLE]

AN IDYL OF HONOLULU.

A Bold Stroke for a Husband. Written for This Paper.

BY LEON LEWIS.

CHAPTER Hl—Continued. “I will now tell you who the young man is,” said Bullet, drawing his chair nearer to his daughter. “His name is Ralph Kemplin.” "Ralph Kemplin? Any relation to the Kemplins in whose ship you used to sail?” '‘Yes, the only son of that Kemplin. I see that I have not talked to you in vain' about my old employer and his family. This youth is now on his way around the world. Here is a great bundle of papers by which his identity is perfectly established. Ido not know exactly how he got into his present fix, but I am going to town soon to make inquiries, and in Ihe meantime I can guess about how it was ” “In what kind of a fix is he?” “He has been waylaid—probably with an eye to robbery, as his pocketbook is gone, his watch, and'so on —and in the struggle he has received a blow on the head that has utterly destroyed his memory. You’ve heard of similar oases; at least the medical books are full of them. He don't know anything about himself and his history. It’s all a blank to him—his past, who he is and where he is. He don’t even know his own name!” Alma looked shocked. “He’s an idiot, then?” she murmured.

rambles,” interrupted Alma, with a look of keen anxiety. “Well, why not?" “Because because there may be enemies looking for you in some of those lonely ravines,” declared the girl, with the air of having been forced to say something she would have preferred to keep secret. “I dare say some of the—the native young tnen may be jealous of you.” “Jealous of me? Impossible! They know that I am only a poor waif upon whom your father and you have kindly taken pity. They know that lam only a pensioner upon your bounty and not a suitor for your hand, Miss Bullet.” The girl sighed, as she tore in pieces a bunch of wild flowers she had gathered.

“They may not know all this—those native young men who used to try to pay me attention,"she murmured; “and some of them, I know, are very ugly and malicious, and that is why I have so often begged you not to wander away so far, and why 1 have asked you to be always on your guard. You have been ten or twelve miles, I suppose?" “Yes—or more. How can I help moving ? lam too worried and excited to remain motionless. Finding myself a little tired upon my return from this long ramble, I dropped into this pleasant place to rest. ” “Shall we read a little more to-day?" asked Alma, after waiting a few moments for Ralph to continue his account of himself. “No, no —thank you! I am tired of geography, tired of history, tired of qven your ancient Greeks and Romans ! r “Then perhaps you don’t wish me to remain here at all?” breathed the girl, sadly, while a tear welled up slowly into each eye. “Yes, I do—of course, of course,” returned Ralph, quickly, looking as if his conscience smote him for those tears. “Sit down here beside me. I am always glad to see you, as you ought to know Dy this time. Come when you will, your coming is always welcome. How could it be otherwise after all you have done for me ?" Sendiag a quick but comprehensive glance in every direction around, as if to assure herself that no intruders were near, the girl seated herself upon the velvety sward near Ralph, and promptly recovered her calmness and all the studied charms of her voice and manner.

“No, nothing of the kind. He has simply lost his memory, forgotten how to read, forgotten his friends—even his sweetheart, if he happens to have any. He has the same tastes and passions, however, as before his injury. He is, in fact, the same man as before, except in so far as regards memory and its various offices and connections.” “How odd!” ejaculated Alma. “He must be a sort of grown-up baby!” “The very thing!” returned Bullet. “That expression describes him perfectly. Yet he still has the airs and manners of a cultivated gentleman, doing from habit and instinct what he has been accustomed to do by reason.” He narrated briefly how Kulu had fallen in with Ralph, and all the circumstances —so far as known—under which the sufferer had come into his keeping. “And, now that he is here,” concluded Bullet, “what a field of action is opened to you! In three or four days the poor fellow will be physically well, but in all probability his past will continue a blank to him. We will give him a new name, and you must teach him his letters, and get him to reading again, and study geography and history with him —in a word, make a man of him upon his new basis. And, while you are thus engaged, if you are as able as I think you are, you will at least win the young man’s gratitude, and most likely nis affection, and so become his wife. And once you are his wife, I will speedily make a pretense of discovering who and where his father is, and restore them to each other. As you and your husband will be the sole heirs of the merchant’s vast wealth, you become a great lady at one jump. Now, what do you say to the project?” “I think it can be carried out," answered Alma, as a look of eager resolution mantled her face. “At least, I will do all I can to make a success of it.”

“It’s no wonder you are tired of reading and studying,” she murmured. “How constantly we have been poring over books during the time you have been here! You were only a few hours in learning the letters of the alphabet, and since then we have exhausted the whole stock of books upon the island. Even the missionaries have little more to lend us. But you must certainly feel that you are paid for all this trouble. You know almost everything —all that is usually taught in the schools, and all that is to be learned by an extended course of select reading. “I am certainly improved from the Ignorant creature I was when you took me in hand,” returned Ralph, with a sad smile. “Then everything was so strange to me, as if I had just dropped down from the skies. I had no idea of the ocean, the continents, the islands, the stars, or the planets. London, Paris, Rome; New York, San Francisco, America, Europe, Asia—these are all names which were then only empty sounds to me. But now, Miss Bullet, thanks to your constant and generous assistance, I am like other men ” “Only so much nobler and wiser than the majority of them!” breathed Alma, with an earnestness which rendered any doubt of her sincerity impossible. Ralph smiled again, and rejoined: “You flatter me, but I know howto excuse your flattery. The teacher is always partial to the scholar. But I am so far like other men, at least, that I am now prepared to bear my part in the great battle of life; that I can look out intelligently upon the scenes around us; that I can reason and act in all and any given circumstances; and that I am now capable of considering all and any problems—even the great mystery of myself.” “And it is of this ‘great mystery’ that you have been puzzling again, no doubt?” murmured Alma, with an uneasiness she could not entirely conceal. “Yes; it is of this horrible secret that I have been puzzling again,” affirmed Ralph, his rich voice freighted with unrest and desolation. “Who was I before your father gave me this name of Ashley Benning? Where did I come from? What was my former name, my race, my kindred?” “Father surmises that you may have been a sailor upon some ship,” said Alma, with averted face. “A sailor? Impossible! The same idea occurred to me, and I have been and looked at a hundred sailors one after another. lam not like them, You need only look at my hands. Is that the hand of a sailor?’^ The girl glanced at the hand extended toward her, so white, so soft-skin-ned, so small and delicate, and the utter absurdity of comparing such a member with the average hand of a sailor, with its thick, tar-begrimed skin and its horny callosities, was at once apparent. “Another thing,” added Ralph, “if you and your father had had the least belief of my having been a sailor, you would have taught me to be a sailor, and not have adopted the plan of making me a man of books—a scholar—a learned gentlemarf.” The fair conspirator turned pale at the force of this reasoning, and for a moment could not entirely hide her confusion. “I was not a sailor, therefore, as you can see at a glanoe,” resumed Ralph, with a promptness which showed how much he was preoccupied by the problem of his former existence. “But wb at was I?” Alma hardly knew what to answer, but soon replied: “Why do you ask? Is it not manifestly impossible that any of these harrowing questions should ever receive a solution? Father and I have passed in review a hundred times every possibly theory of your past history, but all are equally unsatisfactory and all are equally far from any definite conclusion.” “It occurred to me, of course, that I must have come in one of the ships which, about* that time, entered the harbor,” continued Ralph, thoughtfully, “and I have accordingly been making inquiries." The pallor deepened on Alma's face. “You have?! 1 she gasped. “Yes, I have been making inquiries. Yesterday and to-day I have made two long visits to Honolulu. ”

A few details established a full understanding and harmony between the father and daughter, ana they awaited with impatience the moment of Ralph’s awakening to enter upon their nefarious conspiracy. At the end of two or three hours a stir in the little bedroom announced that the sufferer was awake, and in an instant Bullet was hovering over him, “You feel better now, sir?” “Oh, so much better.” “Do you feel well enough to see my daughter? She’s to help me take care of you.” Ralph assented, and Alma at once entered. Bullet introduced her to the patient, who greeted her with mechanical politeness. “You can’t recall your name yet, can you?” asked Bullet. The sufferer contracted his brows Eainfully a few moments, and shook his ead sadly. “We shall have to give you a new name, sir,” pursued Bullet. “Suppose we call you Ashley Benning, after an old friend of mine?” Ralph nodded a weary assent. “Ashley Benning it is, then.” A few minutes the father and daughter conversed with their patient, and then they proceeded to their little kitchen, intent Upon making him a nice broth and a gruel. “You see that he is started upon his new life,” muttered Bullet, rubbing his hands gleefully together. “All trace of Ralph Kemplin is lost until we choose to find it. This young man is simply Ashley Benning, and his life dates from the present. He is, in fact, an entirely new creation. All we have to do is to be secret and cautious, and keep all knowledge of him from everybody until you are his wife, and we Bhall then find ourselves on the very pinnacle of happiness and fortune! The first great step Is taken!” ' It was, indeed. It only remained to be seen what would eome of it.

CHAPTER IV. RALPH IN HIS NEW CHARACTER Beneath a cocoanut tree, upon the slope of a gentle declivity overlooking the little valley in which the Bullet promises were situated, reclined Ralph Kemplin in an attitude of dejected thoughtfulness, toward the close of due of those dreamy and beautiful days by which the neighborhood of Honolulu is distinguished. “Strange, strange!” was the sighing ejaculation that at brief intervals broke from him. The sound of light footsteps, accompanied by the rustling of a woman’s dress, at last aroused him from his sad and profound musings, and he gathered himself up into a sitting posture ih time to receive the daughter of the old ex-sailor. Miss Alma Bullet. The girl was dressed ccauettishly, and it could have been seen at a glance that she had acquired a great many new charms and graces since her acquaintance with Ralph, just as meaner things are polished by contact with better. “Ah, here you are, Mr. Benning?” she said, with a forced smile and an equally forced assumption of lightheartedness. “I wondered what had become of you. I was afraid you might have wandered off into some danger.” “Oh, I know too much for that,” returned Ralph, with a bitter curling of his lips. “I have been taking a long walk among the hills ” “And yet you know that I do not want you to go so far upcu these lopely

The start giveh by Alma at this declaration partook largely of affright. She stole several sly glances in quick succession at her companion. “Well?” shb Anally faltered. “Well, I have had my labor for my pains. I have learned all I can in regard to the ships which were in port at the date in question, and also made every possible inquiry in regal'd to the persons aboard of those ships, but I have not been able to find the least light in that quarter. It is impossible to say who I formerly was, or how I reached this island." “Or even when,” suggested Alma, still averting her face. “You may have been on the island months or years before we found you. You may have been afflicted with—with some terrible mental disease. In any case, whoever you may have been, and whatever your parentage, it is reasonable to think that you may have been deliberately abandoned by your friends, and that they have taken such good care to cover up their tracks that you never, never will be able to get the least trace of them.”

This view of the case was not a new one. Ralph had often contemplated it before, but he had never been able to consider it calmly. It was, in fact, the most painful of all the theories he had ever formed concerning himself, and its horrors now kept him silent. “And such being the oommon-sense view of the matter,” resumed Alma, “why should you worry yourself to death with a mystery that can never be cleared up? Is it not better to let the dead past alone and turn your attention to the living present?” “This is course I propose to take,” declared Ralph with a longdrawn sigh. “It would be both foolish and wicked, of course, for me to spend my life in an endeavor to answer questions which are from their very nature unanswerable. But one of the most pressing duties of the present is for me to cease to be an object of charity—to avoid taxing your goodness and that of your father any further —in short, to adopt some work or profession that will insure me a support and render me independent of others.” “What! you are tired of us? You would leave us?” cried Alma, ‘turning Sale again and looking a world of toner reproaches. “It is not that, Miss Bullet.” said Ralph, with gentle gravity. “Among all the thousands of truths I have learned during the past few weeks, I have not failed to learn that the first principle of manhood is pecuniary independence; and the time has arrived for me to carry this 1 truth into practice.” Alma mused painfully a few moments, and then turned her most effective glances upon her companion, her features brightening; ’ “Very well,” she said, “I see no objections to your being independent, since suc|j is vour desire. Father will sell yoh some land, which you can pay for by your labor, or he will endeavor to procure for you a position of soma kind in Honolulu. But whatever you do, bear in mind that father and I ara your true friends, that we have your happiness at heart, and that we are anxious to do all we can for vou.” “You have both been singularly kind to me,” returned Ralph, as he leaned forward and took the girl’s hand in his own, pressing it gratefully. “To you, especially, I owe more than my life. Rest assured that I shall always be grateful.” While he was uttering these declarations, with theffiearty honesty characteristic of him, the dark face of an intruder, a Kanaka, was suddenly raised into view from behind a clump of bushes a few rods in the rear of tho couple, and a clenched hand was shaken menacingly at them, while a pair of savage eyes looked at them with the raging fires of jealousy. Neither of the couple detected this intrusion. “But enough of all this for to-day,” continued Ralph, relinquishing the hand of the girl and arising. “I see your father in the distance, returning from Honolulu, and you will doubtless wish to meet him, as he was to bring you some new fashions,” and the young Chicagoan smiled,' “Let’s walk in that direction.” The sun was now setting in a flood of glory, and by the time the couple had finished a pleasant chat with Bullet the shadowsof evening were falling densely around them. They had finally separated, the old sailor going to see his man Kulu, Ralph retiring to his room, and Alma seating herself in the doorway of the cottage, when the darkfaced Kanaka, of whom we have spoken, advanced toward the girl with a briskness that startled her. She arose hastily. Don’t go,” called the intruder, in a voice in which sullen anger was predominant. “It’s me —Keeri. I must have a talk with you.” |TO BB CONTINUED. |