Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1912 — The Pool of Flame [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Pool of Flame

By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

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CHAPTER XX. O'Rourke’s first fears were for the woman, Ms first words a lie designed to reassure her. "What —what does It meant” she gasped faintly, her face as white as marble, her eyes wide and terrified. "Bure, I’m thinking ’tis nothing at all,” he answered readily, with a smile amending, “nothing of any great consequence, that is to say. Permit me to escort ye to your cabin.” “I’m not afraid,” Mrs. Prynne interjected. “Faith, I see that, madam. But your maid, now—? Would it not be well to return to your stateroom and quiet her, whilst I’m ascertaining the cause of this trouble? I promise to advise ye instantly, whether there’s danger or not.” , “You’re very thoughtful,” she returned. “I’m sure you’re right. Thank you.” He escorted her to her stateroom and left her at the door, remarking its number and renewing his pledge to return in ten minutes —more speedily If possible. He was back in five, with a long face. Mrs. Prynne answered instantly his double-knocked summons and, stepping out quickly, closed the door tight In the fraction of a second that It was wide, however, O’Rourke saw one side of the stateroom warm and bright with electric light, and sitting therO. Cecile the maid, completely dressed, wide awake and vigilant. The girl was French and sullenly handsome after her kind. O’Rourke got an Impression of a resolute chin and resolute eyes

under level brows; and he did not in the least doubt that she was quite prepared to make good and effectual use of the revolver which she held pointed directly at the opening. Why? From her mistress’ poise, too—one arm rigid at her side, the hand concealed In the folds of her gown— O’Rourke divined that she was alert, armed, on her guard no less than the maid. But she left him no time to puzzle over the mystery. “Well?” she demanded breathlessly. “’Tis as I thought,.Mrs. Prynne. A cylinder-head has blown off and done no end of damage. We’re crippled, if in no danger. The other screw will take us far as Aden, but there we’ll have to wait for the next boat.” Mrs. Prynne’s face clouded with dismay. “How long—a day or two?’!she demanded. “Mayhap,” he replied, no less disconsolate; “mayhap as milch as a week. Faith, ’tis meself that would it were otherwise, but I fear there’s no mending matters.” She regarded him thoughtfully for an instant “Then you, too, travel in haste, colonel?’’ “Indeed I do so, madam. Me fortune hangs upon me haste. If I get—there” —he checked himself in time, the word Rangoon upon his lips—“too late, ’twill be all up. I’m heavy with an urgent enterprise, madam.” And he smiled. % . The woman looked past him, down the dusk of the gangway, apparently pondering her dilemma. “What will you do?” she Inquired at length. “Faith!” he said, disturbed, “that’s hard to say.” She flashed him an Ironic look. “You mean you are resigned to the inevitable?” “Be the powersl” he cried in resentment, “I’m resigned to nothing that doesn’t please me. Is it that ye ask me aid? Sure, if ye do, neither the inevitable nor the impossible shall keep ye from arriving at Bombay, and on time!”' Her spirit, through her eyes, answered hia in a flash. Then cooling, she looked hija ovfit_Xronusrow® V>

tie. weighing him deliberately in the balance .of her, knowledge of men. He bore the inspection with equanimity, quite sure of himself, as was natural in the O’Rourke. Provoked, put ou his mettle, he felt himself invincible, and showed It in every line of his pose. She could not have wavered long; indeed, her decision waa quite manifest. Impulsively she caught his two hands tn her own. “Yes,” she cried, *T do believe you! I take you at your word—your generous word, Colonel O’Rourke! I will trust Implicitly In you. You shall get me to Bombay by the fifteenth.” “The fifteenth?” he echoed thoughtfully. “This is the tenth.” “The Panjnab Is scheduled to arrive on the -fifteenth. All my plans depend upon there being no delays.” “Five days! . . . It shall be managed, Mrs. Prynne. Bombay by the fifteenth it shall be, or the O’Rourke will have broken his heart!” She grew thoughtful. “You are very good—l’ve told you that. I believe that you will accomplish what you promise. Yet it seems hardly fair to saddle you with my cares, my perils, without Informing you of their nature —” "Madam.. ’tis not the O’Rourke who would ever be prying into your secrets. Let’s not complicate a simple situation with explanations.” “But, colonel, there is one thing more.” He paused. “It Is a question,” she continued, “of chartering a ship at Aden, is it not?” “I see no other way.” “Then —spare no expense, Colonel O’Rourke. Remember that I foot the bill.” “But—er—” “Or, if you insist, sir, I pay nothing: Great Britain pays for both of us.” “Eh? Yes?” he stammered. “But see, colonel.” He had before then noted indifferently that she wore a chain of thin, fine gold about her neck, Its termination —presumably a locket of some sort —hidden In the folds of her corsage. Now she quietly pulled this forth, and displayed her pendant, a little trinket of gold, a running greyhound exquisitely modeled. Stunned, he stared first at the top, then at the woman. “Ye mean to say —?” he whispered, doubting. “Oh the King’s service, Colonel O’Rourke!" “A King’s couner, madam? You — . a woman!** —— “And why not?” she demanded proudly. “The King’s messengers dare many dangers, it’s true. But in some of them might not a woman serve better than a man?” “True enough. Yet ’tis unprecedented —at least, ye’ll admit, most unusual. I begin to understand. That lascar, for instance—?” “Believe me, Colonel O’Rourke, I’m' at liberty to tell you nothing." “Tell me 'this, at least: would ye know him if ye saw him again?” “Truthfully,” she said, looking him in the eye, “I would not. I will say one other word: I had anticipated his attack, although I had never seen him before.” “Faith, ’tis yourself that has your courage with ye, Mrs. Prynne! . . . But good night, madam! Your servant!” “Good night, colonel,” she said softly, and as she watched him swing away laughed lightly and strangely. Later, still standing outside her door, she sighed, and an odd light glowed deep in her eyes of grayish-green. Sighing again, and with Another low laugh that .yang a thought derisive, as though, she jrere flouting the man whose service she accepted so gladly, she turned and vanished within her stateroom. As she did so, the opposite door—that of an inside stateroom on the same gangway—was opened cautiously. A turbaned head peered out, its eyes glancing swiftly up and down the corridor. Long since, however, the excited passengers had been reassured and had returned to their berths; the coast was clear. The lascar stepped noiselessly out, shut the door without a sound, and sped swiftly forward: a long, brown man with an Impassive cast of countenance in which his eyes shone with a curious light. As he swung into the space at the foot of the saloon companionway, he collided violently with an undersized and excessively red-headed Irishman, nearly upsetting the latter, to say nothing of a glass of brandy-and-soda which he was conveying to a certain stateroom. “Phwat.the dlwle, ye domned naygur! Pwhy d’ye not look where ye’re going?” demanded Danny with some heat. The East Indian backed away, bowed profoundy, mumbling something inarticulate, and sprang up the steps. Danny looked after him, for a moment hesitant, then put down the tray and pursued. He caught the flicker of the lascar’s cummerbund as the latter escaped to the deck, and himself arrived at the forward end of the promenade just in time to see a white shape disappear into the steerage companionway. “I’d take me oath,” said Danny reflectively, “thot he’s the nayguf thot came aboard at Suez. ’Tis meself thot wishes I’d had a betther peep at the ugly mug av him. I’m thinking Td betther be after tellln’ himself.” * CHAPTER XXI. t: • \ Lurching drunkenly into the harbor known locally as Aden Back Bay, the Panjnab came to anchor. O’Rourke, from the lower grating of the steamship’s accommodation ladder, signaled to cne of the swarm of hovering dlnghys, and waiting for it tocome in. reviewed the anchored shipping, gathered transiently together In

that, spot from the tour corners of the earth, and shook his head ddspondlngiy.—■». . . . A yellow-haired Somali boatman shot his little craft in to .the grating. O’Rourke dropped upan the stern-seat and took the tiller. “Post Office pier,” he said curtly. The dinghy shot away with dipping, dripping oars, while the Irishman continued to, search among the vessels for anything that seemed to promise the speed necessary for his purpose, and failed to discover one. “ "Tis hopeless,” he conceded bitter- ■ ly as the boat wove a serpentine wake in and out among the heaving bulks. “And, I’m thinking, ’tis the O’Rourke who will presently be slinking back to confess he bragged beyond his powers. The fool that ye are, Terence, with your big words and your fine promises, all empty as. your purse! ’Tis out of patience I am with ye entirely!” Doubtless he made the very picture of unhappiness. So, at least, seemed to think a man lounging in a dilapidated canvas deckchair beneath a dirty awning in the stern of a distant tramp steamer; who; raking the shoreward-bound with a pair of rusty binoculars,’had chanced to focus upon O’Rourke. “Looks as if he hadn’t a friend in the world,” said the man audibly. “Looks as if a letter from home with cash draft ’ud about fill his little bill.” He grunted in pleased appreciation of his own subtle wit A short man he was, stout, very much at home in grimy pajamas and nothing else, with eyes small, blue, informed with twinkling humor and set in a florid countenance bristling with a three days’ growth of grayish beard. He swung the glasses again upon O’Rourke, and, “Hell!” he exclaimed, sitting up with stimulated interest “Well, by jinks!” said the stout man. “Who’d a-thunk It?” He got up with evident haste and waddled forward to the bridge, where he came upon what he evidently needed in his business: a huge and battered megaphone. Applying this to his lips and filling his lungs he bellowed with a right good will, and his hail, not unlike the roaring of an amiable bull, awoke Aden’s echoes: “O-o-Rourke!” “Good morning,” murmured the Irshman, lifting his head to stare about him with incredulous curiosity. “Who’s that barking at me?” The pajama’d person continuing to shout at the top of hia voice, by dint of earnest staring the Irishman eventually located the source of the uproar. “Now who the dlwle might ye be?” he wondered. “Ananias, me friend” —to the boatman —“row to the steamer yonder where the noise comes from.” Whereupon the ‘stout man, seeing the boat alter its course, put aside the megaphone. And again peace brooded over Aden. On nearer approach to the tramp, O’Rourke’s smile -broadened to a pleased grin, and airily he waved a hand to the man with the voice. “Jimmy Quick!” he observed with unfeigned delight. “Faith, I begin to believe that me luck holds, after all!” From the bottom step of the tramp’s ladder he tossed a coin to the boatman, then mounted to the deck. Incontinently the stout man fell heavily upon his neck with symptoms of extreme joy. • A lull succeeding his first transports, he wiped his eyes, beamed upon his guest and suggested insinuatingly: “Drink?” “Brevity’s ever the soul of your wit, captain,” said O’Rourke. “I will.” And he meekly followed Quick's bare heels beneath the bridge. ' Having set him in a chair, Quick, still a-gurgle, wandered off, unearthed a bottle, beamed upon his visitor, asked a dozen questions in as many breaths and, without waiting for an answer, waddled off again to return with a brace of dripping soda-water bottles. “Schweppe’s,” he said, patting their rotund forms tenderly; “and the last in our lockers—all In your honor, colonel.” “So?” commented O’Rourke. “Hard up, is it? ’Tis not the O’Rourke who would be wishing ye 111, captain, dear, but, faith, meselfs not sorry to hear that word this day. I’m thinking me luck is sound, after all.” Quick had again vanished. Presently O’Rourke heard his mighty voice booming down an engine-room ventilator. “Dravos! Dravos, you loafer! Come up and see a strange sight!” He came back, still vibrant with an elephantine sort of joy. “O’Rourke,” he panted, mopping a damp brow with the sleeve of his jacket, “you’re a good sight for sore eyes. Never did we meet up with you yet but there came a run of luck.” “ "Tis good hearing,” said O’Rourke, smiling. A slight little man slipped a, bald head, relieved by ragged patches 'of gray hair about the temples, apologetically into the cabin door. “The top of the day to ye, Dravos!” said O’Rourke loudly, for little Dravos was partially deaf. “And how are the engines?” The engineer carefully hitched up his trousers and regarded the wanderer with temperate geniality. “Good afternoon, Colonel O’Rourke,” he replied, clipping his words mincingiy. "Very nicely, I thank you.” He shook hands, sat down on the edge of a berth with themanner of one who fears he intrudes, and glanced searchingly at Quick. “If you’re going to serve the drinks, cap’n,” he snapped acidly, “hump yourself!" f He accepted his glass with a dispassionateMr and drank hastily after ; a short ned to the guest, as om who saerU&pr his personal inclinations to . the laws of hospitality. But from his after-glow of benevolence, O'Rourke concluded that the drink had not been unwelcome. . J- /'" 5

“What brings you here?" demanded Quick in a subdued roar.

"I’ve a job for ye, If so be it ye’re not otherwise engaged—and if ye can do it.” Quick slapped a huge thigh delightedly. "I knew it—could have sworn, to it!” “Can do anything," asserted Dravos with asperity. “ ’Tis merely a question of speed,” explained the Irishman. “Can ye make Bombay in four days—be the fifteenth?” “Dravos,” roared Quick, “how much speed can you get out of those damned engines?” “'Twenty knots,” snapped Dravos. “When can you sail?” “To-night,” said Dravos. “If,” stipulated Quick, “I can pick up a crew in Aden.” “ ’Tis settled then-’’ “We’ll need a bit of money in advance.” “Ye*'shall have it, within reason.” Dravos rose and sidled towards the door, a faraway look in his pale eyes. “You strike the bargain, Quick,” he said; “I’ll have a look around the engine-room/* “Right-O, Bobby. . . . Yourself alone, I s’pose, O'Rourke?" “And three others. Danny—" “Yes, yes.” “And two ladies; an Englishwoman and her maid.” (To /be continued

"You Don't Mean to Say—" He Whispered.

With an Unconscious, Surprised Oath, O’Rourke Stepped Aside.