Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1893 — AN IDYL OF HONOLULU. [ARTICLE]

AN IDYL OF HONOLULU.

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

BY LEON LEWIS.

CHAPTER IX—Continued. That Kesri had foreseen about how the matter would turn, was sufficiently evinced by his conduct. Beyond the observations we have recorded, not a word escaped him; but he stood leaning calmly against the door of a pew, in the attitude of a man who considers himself master of the situation. As to Alma and Ralph, they had taken very little notice of the intruder, the prompt action of Bullet having assured them that he Would do all that could be done in his own interest and that of the bridal couple. Alma, it is true, could not refrain from darting sundry glances of scorn and indignation at the rejected suitor, and Ralph was only restrained by a sense of dignity from the instant chastisement of the intruder; but both of the contracting parties may be said to have rather endured than resented the intrusion. “Well, what 1? decided?” whispered Alma to her father, as Bullet returned, flushed and excited, to. her side. “We must go home immediately,” was the answer, in a correspondingly low voice “The conveyance in still in waiting. “I’ll explain all as soon as we are by ourselves. ’ This conclusion was so different from that expected by Alma that she could neither restrain her tears nor her anger.

But Keeri was not to be so readily beaten. The carriage had reached a lonely point of the road, in one of the valleys bordering Pearl Bay, when three ruffian-ly-looking men suddenly bounded from a place of concealment by the wayside, and hurled themselves upon Ralph and the ex-sailor, while the driver of the carriage turned like a tiger upon Alma, thus showing that he was in Keeri’s service. That Ralph fought with as much ability as courage will be taken as a matter of course, but what could he do against such odds and at such a disadvantage? The old sailor fell insensible at the first onslaught, and a crashing blow upon our hero’s skull soon stretched him beside Bullet. Of what further then and there followed he knew nothing. At least two or three hours must have passed subsequent to this furious assault before Ralph recovered his senses, but he finally gathered himself up into a sitting posture, after sundry preliminaries, ana bent a keen glance in every direction around him. “The villains!" he ejaculated. “They’ve fled, of course! They’ve not only given me the ‘oompliments’ of Hank Ripple, as they said, but they’ve doubtless robbed me 1"

“Is that tawny rascal, then, so high and mighty that we must be his humble victims?” she demanded, excitedly. “Hush! Let us have no further scene here,” enjoinsd Bullet, nervously. “Nothing is particularly amiss—if you do as I tell you. The priest has given me instructions. We must leave at once." The gravity of her father’s tones impressed the girl even more than the words, and she no longer delayed the departure. Keeri waited in his serene attitude until the bridal couple and Bullet had returned to their carriage, and then he stalked quietly away, paying little heed to the suppressed jeers and reproaches of which he was the object, from the younger portion of the guests, whose pleasure he had thus troubled. In three minutes more the little church was deserted, and the bridal party were leaving the town behind them. “To go home is our first step, of course,” whispered Bullet, indicating by a nod unwelcome listener in the person of the driver of the carriage. “It’s only at home that I shall be able to talk with you freely. ” Hardly a word passed until the ride was over, although it was one, it will bo remembered, of nearly an hour’s duration. “You may wait,” said Bullet to the driver, when the party had alighted. “I shall probably require your services further.” The bridal couple were soon seated with Bullet in the privacy of their little sitting room, ana then the bold and still angry eyes of Alma turned inquiringly to her father. “I can now tell you all,” said the exsailor in a whisper, after looking nervously around. "That wretched Keeri had the basement of the church full of sailors from the dock and Kanakas from all points of the compass. He must have had, the pastor thinks, fifty or sixty armed men at his heels, and he came there intent upon an unheard of disturbance. To kill Mr. Banning outright, and to carry you off again to the hills, Alma, wore two well-defined points of his plan; and my own life, of course, was not accounted of the value of a feather. To save not only our own lives but those of our invited guests, the pastor enjoined me by everything sacred to take the course I have taken.”

He felt hastily in his pocket. “Yes, they have taken purse and papers, ” he added. “And Maida? Ripple, too? Can it be that he has smuggled himself aboard the Nor’wester, as these deserters stated?” Wiping his bruised head, he arose to his feet and bent his steps in the direction of Honolulu. He had gone scarcely a hundred rods, however, when he met Kulu, that other Kanaka of our acquaintance—the servant of Bullet —the very man, it will be remembered, who had first encountered the younfr Chicagoan after the memorable injuries, many weeks before, which had robbed Ralph of his memory. “Can I be of any use to you, Mr. Benning?” asked Kulu, after looking the wonder he felt at seeing him in such a plight. Ralph halted with an inquiring glance. “Are you speaking to me, sir?" ho asked. Kulu nodded. “Then I beg to inform you that my name is not Benning, but Kemplin— Ralph Kemplin!" “Oh, indeed!" The Kanaka was silent a moment, recoiling in his amazement, and then he cried:

“You are aware, of course, that Mr. Bullet has been seriously injured—taken home in an insensible and dangerous condition?” It was now Ralph’s turn to recoil in astonishment, as he replied: “No, I know nothing of any Mr. Bullet. Never heard the name before.” “But surely you must know that Miss Bullet has been carried off to the hills again by Keeri?” “Miss Bullet? Keeri?” repeated Ralph, wonderingly. “Never heard the names before. I know nothing of these parties. What are they to me? Are you drunk or joking? Or do you take me for a fool?” The Kanaka was reasonably brave, as we have asserted in a former page, but things were now getting too mixed for his comprehension, and he turned and fled in silence. “Well, let him go,” muttered Ralph. “He probably finds his fool’s game a losing one. Let’s see —let me think a little. This business with these three ruffians has really confused me. Ah, I have it all now. Maida —my dear Maida—has just sailed in the Nor’wester for the Arctic Ocean. The Yokohama is to sail for China to-morrow. Feeling lonely and gloomy I came out here to look at the fish-ponds and other curiosities, and here I have been nearly murdered, at Hank Ripple’s suggestion, by those three runaways from the Nor’wester! Well, well,” he added, with a glance at the sun, “there are still several hours at my disposal, and it will be strange if 1 cannot bring the villains to justice before. I leave the island!"

'You have done well in heeding the pastor’s advice, of course,” said Ralph; “but it is not necessary that Alma and I should abandon our idea of getting married. We can all slip off quietly to some near village of the interior, and there have the marriage ceremony performed, and the whole affair ended, I should say, within two or three hours.” “The very course I was intending to take —the very course, in fact, advised by the pastor,” cried* Bullet, jubilantly. “It was in this view that I have kept the carriage in waiting. In this way we shall turn the tables completely upon Keeri; for after you are once married, of course, all his schemes and machinations will fall to the ground, for the simple reason that they will be utterly futile.” “Let us be off at once,” proposed Alma, arising. “There’s the little ohapel on the other side of Pearl Bay — Mr. Hapgood’s—scarcely five miles distant, and that is probably as good a place for us as any other.” “At any rate, it is the place I have mentally selected,” said Bullet, giving his daughter a look of secret intelligence. “You and Ashley had better look to your toilets, and we’ll be off for Mr. Hapgood’s in a few moments.” It seemed to Ralph that Bullet was anxious to say a few words in private to Alma, and he accordingly availed himself of the suggestion about his toilet to retreat to his own apartment. Alma, in like manner, was about retiring to heV room when her father intercepted her on the stairs. “Just one word, but a very important one," he whispered. “All I’ve said about Keeri’s band of desperadoes is a lie, made up under the spur of the moment. The real difficulty is, as the pastor informed me, that Keeri came to the church with the intention of declaring who Ashley is, and with the further intention of showing that we also know who and what he is.” , 'But how can Keeri have learned Ashley’s identity?” breathed Alma. "The Lord only knows: but, perhaps, from the three sailors of whom I have spoken —the three who have been hanging around Honolulu all these weeks, and who have shown clearly enougn, in one way and another, that they are in the secret of Ashley’s identity. You see, therefore, that it was very considerato of the pastor not to force Keeri to bawl out all he knows about Ashley, and you also see that it was equally incumbent upon me to beat a retreat. “Exactly!” breathed Alma, with a fiercer look of reserve upon her countenance -than Bullet 1 had ever before seen upon it. 'I see! I see! No time is to be lost. Let us be off for Mr. Hapgood’s at once. By this movement We snal} beat the Kanaka and make a Success of our project.” In five minutes more the trio were dn their way in the carriage around Pearl Bay to the little chapel of Mr. Hapgood. Not a soul had been seen approaching from the town, and the hearts of Bullet and his daughter beat high with the hope that their conspiracy would be crowned with success.

With this resolve uppermost in his mind, he started anew at a brisk pace for the capital. , “And Maida? How can I reach her? How save her from that vile Hank Ripple?” As indicated by his words, the recent blow upon Ralph’s head had counteracted the injuries he had received from a former one from the same assailants. All that had passed since that memorable day was now in its turn utterly obliterated from his consciousness, while his old memory had been restored! He no longer knew anything about Benning, Alma, or Bullet! In a word, he was “himself again!”

CHAPTER X. THE BITUATIOX CLEARING. As Ralph Kemplin, “clothed and in his right mind,” although bruised in body, continued his brisk walk towards the capital, he was struck with the length of the road. “Seems to me I ought to have reached town before now, or at least be In sight of it,” he muttered. “Queer enough!” He continued to trudge on resolutely, notwithstanding the weakness induced by his injuries and the heat of the afternoon, and at length came out upon the crest of the hills adjoining Kalika Bay—the scene, it will be remembered, of the first assault he had experienced at the hands of Ripple’s three ruffians long weeks before. From this point Punch Bowl Hill is plainly visible, looming up behind and beyond the capital, and the amazement of the young Chicagoan, as he saw where ho was, almost took away his breath. “Why, I’m further from town after all these miles of travel than I was when these ruffians attacked me,” he exclaimed, involuntarily. “Yes, yonder is the spot where they waylaid me! Doubtless I shall see our traces in the sand and other indications of the struggle.” He failed in this expectation, of course, but he-did not relax his steady pace toward the town. “Thay must have carried me inland a few miles to rob me at their leisure,” was the conclusion he soon reached. “It may be they had a wagon in waiting.” As this theory made the whole sitnation plain to him, he dismissed the subject from his mind and began to look forward to what he should do upon his arrival at the capital. “I’ll first see the agent of the Nor'wester, who is also the agent of the Yokohama, and he will assist me in setting things to rights,” was hie

speedy and natural reflection. “As W the question of money, that can be managed readily enough, even if I do not recover my drafts and other papers.” He held to his course with suoh resolution that he made prompt entry into town, arriving there before the agent to whom he had made reference had left his office, although it was now late in the afternoon. [TO BE CONTINUED. 1