Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 119, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1912 — The Grand Babylon Hotel [ARTICLE]

The Grand Babylon Hotel

(Copyright The Frank A. Munsey Co.)

CHAPTER X. j At Sea. It seemed to Nelia that she was being rocked gently in a vast cradle, which swayed to and fro with a motion at once slow and incredibly gentle. This sensation continued for some -time, and there was added, to it the sound of a quick, quiet, muffled beat. Soft exhilarating breezes wafted her forward in spitS of herself, and yet she remained in a delicious calm. She wondered if her mother was kneeling by her side, whispering some lullaby in her childish ears. Then strange colors swam before her eyes. Her eylids wavered and at last she awoke. For a few minutes her gaze traveled to and fro in a vain search for some clue to her surroundings. She was aware of nothing except a sense of repose and a feeling of relief that some mighty and fatal struggle was over; she cared not whether she had conquered or suffered defeat in that struggle of her soul with some other soul; it was finished, done with, and the consciousness of its conclusion satisfied and contented her.

Gradually her brain, recovering from Its obsession, began to grasp the phenomena of her surroundings, and she saw that she was on a yacht, and that the yacht was moving. The motion of the cradle was the smooth rolling of the vessel; the beat was the beat of its screws; the strange colors were the cloud tints thrown by the sun as it rose over a distant and receding shore in the wake of the yacht; her mother’s lullaby was the crooned song of at the wheel. All through her life Nella had had experiences of yachting. From the waters of the Hudson to these bluer tides of the Mediterannean she had yachted in all seasons and in all weathers. She loved the water and now it seemed deliciously right and proper that she should be on the water again. She raised her head to look around, and then let it sink back; she was fatgued, enervated; she desired only solitude and calm; she had no care, no anxiety, no responsibility; a hundred years might have passed since her meeting with Miss Spencer, and the memory of that meeting appeared to have faded into the remotest background of her mind.

It was a small yacht, but her practiced eye at once told her that it belonged to the highest aristocracy of pleasure craft ' - • •. As she reclined in the deck chair fit did hot occur to her at the moment to speculate as to the identity of the person who had lalß her therein) she examined all visible details of the vessel. The deck was white and smooth as her own hand, and the seama rjm along its length like blue veins. All the brass work, from the band round the slender funndl to the concave surface of the binna.de, shone like gold. Two tapered masts stretched Upward at a rakish angle, and the rigging seemed like spun silk. No sails were set; the yacht was under steam, and doing about seven or eight knots. She judged that it was a boat of a hundred tons or so, probably Clyde built, and not more than two or three years old.

No one was to be seen on deck except the man at the wheel. This man wore a blue jersey, but there was neither name nor initials on the jersey; nor was there a name on the white life buoys lashed to the main rigging, nor on the polished dingey which hung high on the starboard davits. , She called to the man, and called again, in a feeble voice, but he took no notice of her, and continued his quiet song as though nothing else existed in the universe save the yacht, the sea, the sun and himself. Then her eyes swept the outline of the land from which they were hastening, and she could just distinguish a lighthouse and a great white irregular dome which she recognized as the Kursaal at Ostend, that gorgeous rival of the gambling palace at Udonte Carla So she was leaving Ostend! On the whole, she felt glad to be leaving Ostend. :: The rayfj of the sun fell on her caressingly, like a restorative. All around the water was changing from wonderful grays and dark blues to Still more wonderful pinks and translucent unearthly greens; the magic kaleidoscope of dawn was going forward in its accustomed way, regardless of the vi6issitudes of mortals. Here and there in the distance she descried a sail—the brown sail of some Ostend fishing boat returning home after a night's trawling. Then the beat of paddles caught her ear, *<♦* • ■- . .

and a steamer blundered past, wallowing clumsily among the waves like a tortoise. It was the Swallow from London. She could see some of its passengers leaning curiously over the aft rail. A girl in a mackintosh signaled to her, and mechanically Nella answered the salute with her arm. The officer on the bridge of the Swallow bailed the yacht, but the man at the wheel offered no reply. In another minute the Swallow was nothing but a blot in the distance. -Nella tried to sit up straight in the deck chair, but she found herself unable to do so. Throwing .off the rug which covered' her, shd discovered that* she had been tied to the chair by means of a pieee of broad webbing. Instantly she was alert, Swake, angry ; she knew now that her perils were not over; she felt that - possibly they had scarcely yet begun. Her lazy contentment, her dreamy sense of peace and repose, vanished utterlly, and she steeled herself to meet the dangers of a grave and difficult situation. Just at that moment a man came up from below.

He was a middle-aged man, clad in irreproachable blue, with a peaked yachting cap. He raised the cap politely. “Good morning,” he said. “Beautiful sunrise, isn’t it?” The clever and calculated insolence of his tone cut her like a lash as she lay bound in the chair. Like all people who have lived easy and joyous lives in those fair regions where gold smooths every , crease and law keeps a tight hand on disorder, she found it hard to realize that there were other where gold was useless and law without power. Twenty-four hours ago she would have declared it impossible that such an experience as she had suffered could happen to anyone; she would have talked airly about civilization, and the Nineteenth (Century, and progress, and the police. But her experience was teaching her that human nature remains always the same, and that beneath the thin crust of security on which we good citizens exist the dark and secret forces of crime continue to move, just as they did in the days when you couldn’t go from Cheapside to Chelsea without being set upon by thieves. Her experience was in a fair way to teach her this lesson better than she could have learned it even in the bureaus of the detective police of Paris, London and St. Petersburg, “Good morning,” the man repeated, and she glanced at him with a sullen, angry gaze.

"You!” she exclaimed. “You, Mr. Thomas Jackson, if that is your name! Loose me from this chair and I will talk to you.” Her eyes flashed as she spoke, and the contempt in them added mightily Jo her beauty. Thomas Jackson, otherwise Jules, erstwhile head waiter at the Grand Babylon, considered himself a connoisseur in female lovliuess, and the vision of Nella Racksole smote him like an exquisite blow. “With pleasure,” he replied. “I had forgotten that to prevent you from falling I had secured you to the chair, ’’ and with a quick movement be unfastened the band. Nella stood up, quivering with a fiery annoyance and scorn. “Now,” she said, fronting him, “what is the meaning of this?” “You fainted,” he replied imperterbably. “Perhaps you don’t remember.” The man twirled his mustache with a characteristic gesture. Nella was obliged to acknowledge, in spite of herself, that the fellow had distinction, an air of breeding. : 7 - ; - g No one would have guessed that for 20 years he had been a hotel Waiter. His long, hthe figure and easy careless carriage, seemed to be the figure and carriage of an aristocrat, and his voice was quiet, restrained, authoritative.

“That has nothing to do with my being carried off in this yacht of yours.” “It is not my fault,” he said, “but I tfiat is a minor detail. As to the more : important matter, forgive me, if I ; remind you that only a few hours ago i you were threatening a lady in my , house with a revolver.” “Then it was your house?” “Why not? May I not possess a house?” He smiled. “I must request you to put the yacht about at once, instantly, and i take me back.” She tried to speak firmly. “Ah!” he said, “I’m afraid that’s simply impossible. I- didn’t put ont to i sea with the intention of returning ‘at once,’ instantly!” In the last words he gave a faint imitation of her tone. “When I do get back," she said, “when my father gets to know of this ' affair, it will be an exceedingly bad day for you, Mr| Jackson.” “But supposing your father doesn’t hear of it”— — “What ” “Supposing you never do get back?” “Do you mean to murder me?” “Talking of murder,” he said, “you came very near to murdering my friend, Miss Spencer. At leasteo she tells me."

“Is Miss Spencer on board?” Nella asked, seeing perhaps a faint ray of hope in .the possible presence of a woman. “Miss Spencer is not on board. Thtere Is no one on board except you and myself and a very small crew—a very discreet crew, I may add.” “I will have nothing more to say to yon. You must take your own course.” ' “Thanks for the permission. I will send you up some breakfast.” He went to the saloon stairs and whistled, and a negro boy appeared With a tray of chocolate. Nella took it and without the slightest hesitation threw it overboard. Mr; Jackson walked away a few steps and then returned. “You have spirit,” he said, “and I admire spirit. It is a rare quality.” She made no reply. “Why did you mix yourself up in my affairs at all?” he went on. Again she made no reply, but the question set her to thinking. Why had she mixed herself up in this mysterious business?

It was quite at variance with the usual methods of her gay and butterfly existence to meddle at all with serious things. Had she acted merely from a desire to see justice done and wickedness punished? Or was it the desire of adventure? Or was it, perhaps, the desire to be of service to his serene highness the Prince Aribert? “It is no fault of mine that you are in this fix, Jules continued. “ didn’t bring you into it. You brought yourself into it. You and your father —you two have been moving at a pace which is rather too rapid.” “That remains to be seen,” she put in coldly. “It does,” he admitted, “and I repeat that I can’t help admiring you—that is, when you aren’t interfering with my private affairs. That is a proceeding which I have never tolerated from any one—not even from a millionaire, not even from a beautful woman.” He bowed.

“I will tell you what .1 propose to do,”-he went on. “I propose to escort you to a place of safety, and to keep you there until my operations are concluded, and the possibility of interference entirely removed. You spoke just now of murder. What a crude notion that was of yours! It is only the amateur who practices murder.” “What about Reginald Dimmock?” she interjected quickly. He paused gravely. “Reginald Dimmock?” he repeated. I had imagined his was a case of heart disease. If he was murdered, I was not aware of it; and I had nothing to do with it, I assure you. Let me send you up some more chocolate. I’m sure you are hungry.” “I will starve before I touch your food,” she said. “Gallant creature! ” he murine red, and his eyes roved over her face. Her superb, supercilious beauty overcame him-; “Ah!" he said, “what a wife you would make.”

He approached nearer to her. “You and I, Miss Racksole, your beauty and wealth and my brains — we could conquer the world. Few men are worthy of you, but I am one of the few. Listen! You might do worse. Marry me. I am a great man; I shall be greater. I adore you. Marry me, and I will save your life.. All shall be well, I will begin again. The past shall be as though there had been no past.” “This is somewhat sudden —Jules,” she said with biting contempt. “Did you expect me to be conventional?” he retorted. “I love you.” “Granted,” she said, “for the sake of the argument Then what will become of your present wife?” “My present wife?” “Miss Spencer, as she is called?” “She told you I was her husband?” “Incidentally, she did.” “She isn’t.” “Perhaps sbe isn’t But nevertheless I think I won’t marry you.”

He went still nearer to her. “Give me a kiss then; one kiss—l won’t ask for more; one kiss from those lipg, and you shall go free. Men have ruined themselves for a kiss; I will.” A*d4J “Coward!” she ejaculated. “Coward!” he repeated. “Coward, am I? Then I’ll be a coward, and you shall give me a kiss whether you will or not.” He put a hand on her f shoulder. As she shrank back from his lustrous eyes, with an involuntary scream, a figure sprang out of the dingey a few feet away. With a single blow neatly directed to Mr. Jackson’s ear, Mr. Jackson was stretched senseless on the deck. Prince Arlbert stood over him with a revolver. •? / It was probably the greatest surprise of Mr. Jackson’s whole life. “Don’t be alarmed,” said the Prince to'Nella. “my being here is the simplest thing in the world, and I will explain It as soon as I have finished •with this fellow” r ~ •• r Nella coaid think of nothing to say, but she hoticed the revolver in the Friacrt hand. “Why," she remarked, “that's my re-

voiven”' ’> - ■ “It is,” he said, “ I’ll explain that The man at the wheel gave no heed whatever to the scene’ Xv "XTo be continued _