Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1912 — The Pool of Flame [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Pool of Flame

By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

Illustration* by Ellsworth Young

CHAPTER. I—The story opens at Monte Carlo with Col. Terence O'Rourke In his hotel. O'Rourke, a military free lance and something of a gambler, IB dressing Tor appearance In the restaurant below when the sound of a girlish voice singing attracts his attention. Leaning out on the balcony he sees a beautiful girl who suddenly disappears. He rushes to the corridor to see a. neatly gownpd forw enter the elevator and pass from CHAPTER H.—O’Rourke’s mind Is filled with thoughts of the girl, and when he goes to the gaming table be allows bls remarkable adnnings to indifferently. He notices two men watching him. One Is the Hon. Bertie Glynn, while his companion is Viscount Des Trebes. a noted duelist. When O’Rourke leaves the table the viscount tells him he represents the French government and that he has been directed to O’Rourke as a man who would undertake a secret mission. CHAPTER Hl;—At his room O’Rourke, who had agreed to undertake the misslon,awaita the viscount. O’Rourke finds a mysterious letter -Jn his apartment. The viscount arrives, hands a sealed package to O’Rourke. wb° 18 not t° open it until on the ocean? He says the French government will pay O’Rourke 25,000 francs for his services. A pair of dainty slippers are seen protruding from under a doorway curtain and the viscount charges O’Rourke with having a spy secreted there.

CHAPTER IV.—When the Irishman goes to his room he finds there the owner of the mysterious feet. It is his wife, Beatrix, from whom he had run away a year previous. They are reconciled, and opening the letter he had received, he finds that a law firm in Rangoon, India, offers him 100.000 pounds for an Indian jewel, known as the Pool of Flame and left to him by a dying friend. O’Rourke tells his wife ,that It Is in the keeping of a friend named Chambret In Algeria. CHAPTER* V.—O’Rourke is forced to fight a due) with the viscount. The braggart nobleman Is worsted In the combat and acts the poltroon. CHAPTER Vl.—The loyal wife blds O'Rourke farewell and he promises to soon return with the reward offered for the Pool of Flame. He discovers both Glynn and the viscount on board tho ship which takes him to Algeria. CHAPTER VII —Chambret has left Algeria and O'Rourke has to gain a military detachment going across the desert te reach his friend. As he find* the latter there is an attack by< bandits and Chambret ; is shot. CHAPTER Vm.-Chambret died telling O'Rourke that he has left the Pool of Flame with the governor general of Algeria. He gives the colonel a signet ring at the sight of which he says the official will deliver over the Jewel. CHAPTER IX.—O’Rourke Is attacked by Glynn and the viscount who ransack his luggage, but he worsts them tn the conflict. CHAPTER X.-When he arrives at Algeria the finds the governor general away. He receives a note from Des Trebes making a mysterious appointment. CHAPTER XI.-The viscount tells O'Rourke that he has gained possession of the Jewel by stealing It from the safe of the governor general. He does not, however, know who has offered the reward fer It.’ He suggests a duel with rapiers, the victor to get that information and the Jewel.

CHAPTER XII. Early in the dull hot dawn a clatter of winches and a bustle of shadowy figures on the deck of a small trading vessel, which had spent the night between the moles of the harbor of Algiers, announced that the anchor was being weighed. While this was trking place a email harbor boat, manned by two native watermen and carrying a single passenger, put out from the >steamship quay, the oarsmen rowing with a will that hinted at a premium having been placed upon their speed. The coaster was barely under way, moving slowly In th 6 water, when the boat ran alongside. A line was thrown from the ship, and caught by one of the watermen, the boat hauled close in, and its passenger taken on deck. An .hour later, a pipe between his teeth, O’Rourke stood by the ifelmsman, staring back over the heaving expanse, swiftly widening, that lay between the coaster and the Algerian littoral. The world behind was gray afid wan, but 'the skies ahead were golden. “A fair omen!” breathed the adventurer hopefully. • The bulk of the great ruby in his pocket brought his thought back In a wide swing to the girl who would be waiting for him at Rangoon. “Faith, and I must be getting below and making a dab at writing a letter to her. . . . That was nothing.” He nodded with meaning towards the bold profile of Algiers. . . . An ill wind It was that blew Colonel O’Rourke into Athens. . . . It has blown Itself out and been forgotten this many a day,-praises be! but that, once It had whisked him thither, Immediately It subsided and stubbornly It refused to lift again and waft him forth upon his wanderings, in the course of time came to be a matter of grievous concern tothe Irishman. AU of which is equivalent to saying that the dropping breeze of his finances died altogether upon his arrival in the capital of’Greece. He disembarked from a coasting steamer in the harbor ot the Piraeus encumbered with a hundred francs or so, an invincible optimism, a trqnk and a kit-box, and a klng'fe ransom on his perron in the shape of the Pool at Flame; which latter was hardly to after followed days of inaction, while his hopes diminished. . NeerlLlwo W hi—od

since he had promised twb people—himself and one infinitely more dear to him —to be in Rangoon in ninety days. In little more than a month she’d be waiting for blip there, . . And, where would he be? Still was he far by many a long and weary tn|le from the first gateway to the "Esrst—Silezl’and still he lacked many an aloof and distant dollar the funds to finance him thither. If only he could contrive to get to Alexandria —I Danny wtfh there— Danny Mahone, he of the red, red head and the ready fists; Danny, who held the O’Rourke as only second to "the Pope in dignity and Importance; who had been O’Rourke's valet in a happier time and of late In his hum- . bier way an adventurer like his master. He was there, 1 in Alexandria, half partner in a tobacco importing house, by virtue of money borrowed from O’Rourke long since, at a time when money was to be had of the man for the asking. . . . And Danny would help. . . . You must see O’Rourke revolving in his mind this unhappy predicament of his, on the last of the many afternoons that he spent in Greece. Draw down the corners of his wide, mobile mouth, stir up the devils in his eyes until they flicker and flash their resentment, place a pucker between the brows of his habitually serene and unwrinkled forehead; and there you have him who sat beside the little table in the purple of the Zappeion, with a head bared to the cool of the evening breeze, alternately puffing at a mediocre cigar and sipping black coffee from the demi-tasse at his elbow.

Now just as the sun was sinking behind the mountains and Hymettus was clothing its long slopes in vague violet tight of mystery and enchantment (for this view alone O’Rourke took himself to the Zappeion daily) the Irishman’s somber meditations were interrupted. “Phew! ’Otter’n the seven brass 'lnges of ’ell!” remarked a cheerful voice, not two feet from his ear. O’Rourke turned with an imperceptible start —he was not easily stalled. “True for ye,” he assented, taking stock of him who, with his weath-er-wise remark for an introduction, calmly possessed himself of the vacant chair at the other side of the table and grinned a rubicund grin across it. He showed himself a man in stature no! whit inferior to the Irishman, as to height; and perhaps he was a stone the heavier of the two. He lacked, otherwise, O’Rourke’s alert habit, was of a slower, more stolid and beefy build. The eyes that met O’Rourke’s were gray and bright and hard, and set in a countenance flaming red —a color partly natural and partly the result of his stroll through Athens’ heated streets.

His dress was rough, and there was this and that about him to /tell O’Rourke more plainly than words that his profession was something nautical; he was most probably a captain, from a certain air of determination and command that lurked beneath big. free-and-easy manner. Therefore, having summed the stranger up in a glance, “And when did ye get in, captain?” Inquired O’Rourke.

The map jumped with surprise and shot a frightened—at least a questioning—glance at O’Rourke. Then, seeing that he was smiling in a friendly fashion, calmed and continued to cool his face and heat his blood by fanning himself vigorously with a straw hat. “ ’Ow the dooce do you know I’m a captain?” he demanded, with a slightly aggrieved manner. “It shouldn’t take a man an hour to guess that, captaifl—any more than it would to pick ye out for an Englishman”"; ' 1 The captain st.ared, ‘ gray eyes wid- : cnlng. "An’ perhaps you’ll tell me my i nyme next?” he suggested rather truculently. “JDivvle a bit. ’Tls no clairvoyant I am,” laughed O’Rourke. “But I can tell ye me own. ’Tls O’Rourke, and ’tls delighted I am to meet a white man In this Heathen country. Sir, your hand!” He put his own across the table and gripped the captain’s heartily. “Mine’s ’Ole,” the latter informed him. “Ole?” queried O’Rourke. “Ole what?" “Not Ole nothing," said the captain with some pardonable asperity. “I didn’t s’y ’Ole, I s’yd ’Ole.” “Of course,” O’Rourke assented gravely. “I’m istupid, Captain Hole, and a bit deaf in me off ear.” This, however, was a polite lie. “That explyns it,” agreed the moll!-’ fled man. “It’s ’Ole, plyn Will’m ’Ole, master of the Pelican, fryghter, just in from Malta.” A light of Interest kindled in O’Rourke’s eyes, He reviewed the man with more respect, as due to might prove useful. “And bound —?’’ he Insinuated craftily. “Alexandria. . I just dropped in for a d’y or two to pick up a bit of cargo from a chap down at Piraeus. It’s devlish ’ot and I thought as ’ow -I’d tyke a run up and see the city bit of time free, y’know.” “Surely ”, sighefi O’Rourke, a faraway look in his eyfes.- “Por Alexandria, eh? Faith, I’d like- to 'be- sailing ylth ye.” J Again the captain eyed O’Rourke askance. “Wot for?" he demanded directly. “The Pelican’s a slow old tramp. You can pick up a swifter passage on 'arf-a-dozen boats a day." “ ’TU meself that knows that, sure,” assented the Irishman. *”Tis but a trifling difficulty about ready money tiuft%tatnssme," he pursued boldly, with a confidential jerk of his “There’s a bit of stuff—no matter what— -that I don’t want to pass through the Custom pHouse atAlex-

andria. I’m- not saying a word, captain, but if I could smuggle it into Egypt, the profit be great enough to pay me passage-money a dozen times over. I’tn saying this to ye in strict confidence, for, being an Englishman, ye won’t let on." "Never ly. "Umm, . . . Er—-I don’t mind telling lyou, Mr. O’Rourke, I sometimes do a little in that line myself. Being a casual tramp and sometimes lyd by for weeks at a stretch for want of consignment—” , “Not another word, captain. I understand perfectly. Will ye be having a bit of a drink, nowT’

Captain Hole would. “It won’t ’nit to talk this over/’ he remarked. “Per’apa we might myke some sort of a dicker.” “Faith, ’tis meself that’s agreeable," laughed the Irishman lightly. And when, at midnight that night, he parted from a moist and sentimental sailor-man, whose capacity for liquor—even including the indescribable native retsinato and mastieha—had proved enormous, the arrangement had been arrived at, signed, sealed and delivered by a clasping of hands. And it was O’Rourke was the happy man.

“’Tis Danny who’ll be giving me the welcome,” he assured himself, sitting on the edge of his bed and staring thoughtfully into the dishevelled depths of -the battered steel kit-box that housed everything he owned in the world —for he was packing to join the Pelican at noon. “I hope to hiven he has five pounds,” announced O’Rourke later, frowning dubiously. Five pounds happened to be the sum he had agreed to pay Captain Hole for the accomodation, it being further conditioned that the latter -wasto accompany the adventurer ashore at Alexandria and not part from him till the money was forthcoming: something which irked the Irishman’s soul. “Why could he not take me word for it?” he demanded of midnight darkness tempered by feeble lamplight. “But, faith, I forget what I’m dealing with. Besides, ’tls sure I am to find Danny." He arose and resumed his packing, blowing an inaudible lithe air through his puckered lips. “Divvilish awkward if I don’t ... By the Gods! I’d

allJiut misremembered . ; .” He failed to state exactly what he had misremembered, but stood motionless, with troubled eyes staring at the lamp flame, for a full five minutes. Then —

“I’ll have to chance It," he said slowly. “ ’Tisn’t as if it were mine.” He unbuttoned the front of his shirt and thrust a hand between his undershirt and his skin, fumbled about under his left armpit, his brows still gathered thoughtfully. Presently he gave a little jerk and removed his hand. It contained a chamois-skin bag about the size of a duck’s egg, from which dangled the stout cord by Which he had slung it about his neck. Holding this gingerly, as if he feared it would explode, O’Rourke glanced at the wlndqw, drew the blind tight, and tiptoed to the door, where he turned the key In the lock. Then, returning to his bed and 'making sure that he was out of range of the keyhole, he cautiously loosened the drawstring at the mouth of the bag. Something tumbled out into hifl palm and lay there like a ball of redfire, brilliant and corpscant. \ O’Rourke caught at his breath sharply; his very voice had an ominous ring In Its timber when he spoke at length. “Blood,” he said slowly, “blood. . . . I doubt not that rivers of blood have flowed for .the sake of ye. Belike ye were fashioned of blood in the beginning, for ’tls What’s your color, and the story of ye as I’ve heard It is all tolfl when I’ve said that one word —blood! I And, after a bit, "I’d best put It away, I’m thinking. ’Twouldn’t be safe to car ry It that way any longer. If something should catch ta me shirt on board, and rip It, and Hole happen to see It —why, me life wouldn’t be worth a moment’s'purchase. Til hide It In me box there; they’ll niver suspect.**

And with that he thrust the Pod of Flame back into the leather bag, and the hag into the depths of the kit box; which he presently locked and noiselessly moved beneath "his bed. After all of which he- lay flown and with another sigh slept tranquilly, r L. b ° continued Our 11.45 Acme Flour, nothing better made, Pre- Inventory sale price 11.35 ;. ROWLES * PARKER.

He Gripped the Captain's Hand Heartily.