Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 66, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 March 1913 — Page 2

14 SYNOPSIS. Robert Cameron, capitalist, consults Philip Clyde, newspaper publisher, re- • srardins anonymous threatening letters he has received. The first promises a sample of the writer’s power on a certain day. On that day the head Is mysteriously cut from a portrait of Cameron while the latter is in the room. Clyde has a theory that the portrait was mutilated while the room was unoccupied and the head later removed by means of a string, unnoticed hy Cameron. Evelyn Grayson, Cameron’s niece, with whom Clyde is In love, finds the head of Cameroh’s portrait nailed to * tree, where it had been used as a target. Clyde pledges Evelyn to secrecy. Clyde learns that a Chinese boy employed hy Phllatus Murphy, an artist living nearby, had borrowed a rifle from Cameron’s lodgekeeper. Clyde makes an excuse to call on Murphy and is repulsed. He pretends to be Investigating alleged ./Infractions of the game laws and speak's of finding the bowl of an opium pipe under the tree where Cameron’s portrait was found. The Chinese boy is found dead next morning. While visiting Cameron in his dressing room a Nell Gwynne tnirror is mysteriously shattered. Cameron becomes seriously ill as a result of the ■hock. The third letter appears mysteriously on Cameron’s sick bed. It makes direct threats against the Use of Cameron. Clyde tells Cameron the envelope was empty. He tells Evelyn everything and plans to take Cameron on a yacht trip. The yacht picks up a fisherman found drifting helplessly in a boat. He gives the name of Johnson. Cameron disappears from yacht while Clyde’s back is turned. A fruitless search is made for a motor boat seen by the captain just before Cameron disappeared. Johnson Is allowed to go after being closely questioned. Evelyn takes the letters to an expert in Chinese literature, who pronounces them of Chinese origin. Clyde seeks assistance from a Chinese fellow college student, who recommends him to Yup Sing, most prominent Chinaman In New York. The latter promises to seek information of Cameron among his countrymen. Among Cameron’s letters is found one from one Addison, who speaks of seeing Cameron In Pekin. Cameron had frequently declared to Clyde that he had never been in China. Clyde calls on Dr. Addison. > He learns that Addison and Cameron were at one time intimate friends, but had a falling out over Cameron’s denial of having been seen in Pekin by Addison. Clyde goes to meet Yup Sing, sees Johnson, attempts "to follow him, falls into a basement, sprains his ankle and becomes unconscious. Clyde is found by Miss Clement, ■ missionary among the Chinese. He Is glck several days as a result of inhaling charcoal fumes. Evelyn tells Clyde of a peculiarly acting anesthetic which renders a person temporarily unconscious. Murphy is discovered to have mysterious relations with the Chinese. Miss Clement promises to get information about Cameron. Slump in Crystal Consolidated, of which Cameron is the head, is caused by a rumor of Cameron’s illness. Clyde finds Cameron on Fifth avenue in a dazed and emaciated condition and takes him home. Cameron awakes from a long sleep, and ■peaks in a strange tongue. He gives orders to an imaginary crew in Chinese Jargon. Then in terror cries: “I didn’t kill them.”

CHAPTER XlX.—Continued. "Below!” he yelled, fiercely. "Below, you yellow dogs! Below, I say! Every cur’s son of you! Below!” Despite this truculence he was not difficult to master. Together Bryan and I grappled him; in another moment We had him flat on his bed once more, and the nurse was pressing home the piston of that little shining instrument of glass and silver which I had so recently seen him take up from the medicine table. For a moment the patient rolled about, restlessly, muttering strange oaths, mingled with suppliant murmurs. And to me this was the most sadly trying part of the incident. I would gladly have retreated, but Evelyn begged me to wait. “Just until he is quiet," she pleaded; "just until he falls asleep.” At length he lay quite still and we thought from his regular breathing he had succumbed to the narcotic, and so were about to go, when he started up with a little feeble cry, low-voiced, but clearly distinct "No, no, for God’s sake, not that! I didn’t kill them. I swear I didn't kill them. It was an accident She stove on a rock. I —-I —didn’t, I say! 1 didn’t —l—” His voice trailed into silence. He dropped back, heavily, upon the pillows. He slept. It is one thing to have your faith In a friend shaken. That is serious enough in all conscience. But your faith may tremble, and sway and rock, and still there is always the possibility of its being resteadied and made firm again by explanation—by extenuation even. It is quite another thing to have your faith toppled headlong, by the snatching away of the last vestige of support, the last sliver of underpinning. That Is more than serious. It is calamitous; it is catastrophic; it fa tragic. - Back in the library again, I set to pacing the floor. I think Evelyn resumed her seat in the big leathern chair. I am sure. For a time I was not conscious that she was In the room. That it was inconsiderate of me, I admit. It was, perhaps, unpardonable. And yet it was not wilful. Frankly, I had forgotten her, absolutely, fa the stress of the emotional tempest rained by that revelation in the darkened bedchamber. Back and forth, I strode from bookcase to bookcase, over the soft, neu-tral-tlnted Persian rugs; and all the while there echoed those repeated denials of Cameron’s that he had ever been in China. “Never nearer than Yokohama,” he had said. “Once I ate chop suey In a Chicago Chinese restaurants “I have always been Interested tn China and the Chinese, but I know only what I have read.” And the words of his quondam friend came book to mo new, too, with redoubled

The SABLE LORCHA

By HORACE HAZELTINE

emphasis: ’’He refused to admit what I knew to be the truth.” Nevertheless I had chosen to believe that Cameron, should he ever return to us, would be able to clarify this turbid stream of circumstance, and prove the fallibility of appearances. The illusion to which I had clung, however, was now in shred?. Cameron, returning, with body enfeebled and brain confused, had spoken in his unguarded delirium. The mask dropped, the screen thrown down, and barefaced and ttark he stood revealed, a woeful figure in the impartial glare of truth. At the moment I could see no extenuation. He was a liar and he was a coward; and all the sympathy, all the friendship I ever felt for him died utterly, as I thought how, probably, every untoward incident of the past month, with its chain of vexatious consequences, might have been avoided had he been brave to the point, of confession.

It was now plain enough for the least astute to see that at some time he had committed an act w’hich had aroused certain of the Chinese to retaliation. It was this which I had feared from the first. It was this which he had chosen to hide.

As I paced to and fro, his craven words rang once more in my ears: “No, no, for God’s sake, not that! I didn’t kill themJ I swear I didn’t kill them! It was an accident!" And I knew that he was lying. The very tone of his disclaimer convinced me of his guilt. He had killed, and he cowered before the avengers. Disgust, abhorrence, anger, all were mine in turn. At length I paused before a window, ami remained there, with my back to the room, looking down on the withered garden behind the house, yet seeing nothing but the red of my own passion. A touch upon my shoulder aroused me to a realization of my surroundings, and informed me that I was not alone. Startled as one awakened abruptly from a. dream, I turned, and turning, there came a revulsion. Every surcharging emotion that had held and bound me gave way instantly to a violent self-reproach, excited by the pathos of Evelyn’s sad, questioning eyes and sadder, quivering mouth. My impulse was to take her in my arms, and pacifying, to plead pardon for what must have seemed to her an inexcusable churlishness. But thie conditions which so recently she had set upon me forbidding the coveted embrace, I compromised on a hand-clasp. “My dear child,” I began, earnestly, “I’m sorry. But then you must know how what we just saW and heard distressed me. I think I have been mad since we left that room. I hardly know what I have been doing. To see him so unstrung, demented, raving. To hear him —” But she would not allow me to finish. "Philip!” she cried, passionately. "Oh, Philip! Can’t you see? Don’t you understand? It is a mistake, an awful nightmare of a mistake. That creature over there is not my uncle. I am convinced that he is not my Uncle Robert.”

CHAPTER XX. An Enigma and Its Solution. To my amazement I found that Evelyn meant more than I fancied. My interpretation of her words was that Cameron was not in his right mind—that he was not her Uncle Robert, as she had known him. But in a very brief moment she disabused me. “It is not he, at all,” she declared, with emphasis. “There is a resemblance, yes. But the man you found in the street is not Robert Cameron; I am sure of that.” r . The idea that I had brought there, not my friend, but my friend's double, seemed to me too preposterous for a moment’s entertainment. I fear I suspected, just then, that Evelyn’s reason had been warped a trifle by the racking scene of which we had been witnesses. ”1 would to God, my dear child,” I said, sympathetically, “that you were right. But there can be no question as to the identity of the sick man. Every one who has seen him recognized him at once—Checkabeedy, Louis, Stephen, Dr. Massey. No, no, Evelyn, you must , not be misled by bis ravings.” And at this point there occurred to me a tentative explanation—one in which I did not in the least believe, but which, at all events, was worth trying; one which, indeed, I prayed would serve.

“Cameron, you must remember, has been with his Chinese captors for four weeks. In that he must have picked up something of their language. It is only natural that he should. So, you see, to hear him use a few words of pidgin-Engllsh in his insane gibber isb is not so remarkable, after all. And as for that spirited denial just before he dropped off to sleep, it is very evident that they accused him of something with which he had no connec-

tion, though quite cognizant of the facts.” But the girl would have none of it. Tolerantly she listened, and tolerantly she smiled when I had finished. “No, no, Philip,” she insisted, "I see it all quite clearly. Whatever crime was committed, the creature lying there committed it. But he is not my upcle. Others mistook the resemblance for identity, just as you did, only the situation was reversed. Those who abducted Uncle Robert thought they were abducting that villain we are now housing.” It was an ingenious notion, but of course it was not possible. However, I saw that it would be idle to continue to dispute with her. “What would you suggest, then? Shall we send our invalid to a hospital?” I asked, in pretended seriousness. But very sagely she .shook her head. “Oh, no,” she returned. “We mdst keep him. He is very valuable to us. Perhaps we can do as contending armies do—arrange an exchange of prisoners.” In spite of my wretchedness, I suppressed a smile. It was all very amusing; and yet the fear that she was suffering aberration due to hysteria, tempered pitifully the humor of it.

When, later in the afternoqp, Dr,, Massey called, I told him everything, including this hallucination of Evelyn’s.

“You did perfectly right,” he said, in tone of cordial approval. “The malady with which Cameron is afflicted has a tendency to distort certain lineaments. Especially at times of excitement his face changes, so that Miss Grayson is justified in fancying that this is not the Robert Cameron she knew.—l have noticed the dissimilarity myself, but it is due, of course, entirely to distorted expression. In a couple of days, at most, he will be fully restored, and then he himself will be the best one to rectify her error. Meanwhile, if I were you, I would not dispute her. She has gone through a great deal, and gone through it bravely; indeed with a courage that is quite .phenomenal, and she is entitled to any little consolatory beliefs that she chooses to entertain.” And th ep, as if such advice were not wholly superfluous, he added: “Be kind to her, Clyde! be good to her. She is a wonderful young woman.” Whereat I grasped his hand, and promised him, lifting him a notch in my estimation because of his perspicacity. And all the while a lump kept rising in my throat and threatening my tear ducts.

On the following day I heard nothing from Miss Clement, which somewhat surprised me, though she had told me that her prospective informants were likely to take their own time. Early, on the second morning, however, I had a note from her, the enigmatic character of which impelled me to speculation.

“Dear Mr. Clyde,” she wrote, “I hope you can make it convenient to visit me this evening, at the Mission. I want to talk with Ling Fo, an exceptionally well-educated young Chinaman, who tells me that his people are much mystified over a recent event; and, if what he says be true —and I never knew him to He —a new complexion is placed upon this whole matter. Come about nine-thirty, after our service is over.”

As Dr. Massey’s—orders forbidding any one'save Mr. Bryan to enter Cameron’s room, issued immediately after our hideous experience, had not yet been rescinded, our knowledge of his conditiou was, perforce, gleaned entirely through physician and nurse. Both now assured me that he was progressing satisfactorily, and that there had been no return of the dementia. Evelyn still persisted in her notion that the patient was not her uncle, but his double, and following the doctor’s directions I refrained from trying to convince her of the truth; even going so far as to pretend that I believed js she did, and planning to begin negotiations through Miss Clement and her Chinese confidants' for an exchange of captives as soon as our hostage was able to be moved.

“I am to see Miss Clement, tonight,” I told her, late that afternoon, “also an Oriental acquaintance of hers, who appears to be informed on the subject which interests us. It is possible that he will prove the very person who can arrange it all.” ■*

“Let me go with you,” she urged, laying a beseeching hand on my arm. "Do let me go with you, Philip. I am bo anxious. It will seem years if I have to wait here for you to bring me the news; and there are sure to be some things you will forget to ask about, if I’m hot there to propapt you.” In spite of the unflattery of her speech I smiled, indulgent. Her great blue eyes, pathetically pleading as her words, .were able advocates. It was hard to deny her under any circumstances, and now, as I thought it over, I saw no reason why tn this instance she should not have her desire. "Yes,” 1 agreed, "you shall go. But remember, you must be very careful.

ccwtp/mt; a e Aft'cj.v/tG a ea>

tor the present at least, not to let slip the slightest Inkling that we suspect our Cameron is not the real Cameron. We are seeking information, you know, Evelyn, not squandering it.” Pell street wore its night gaudery when the Cameron electric brougham with Evelyn and myself as occupants glided to a halt before the qoor of the Mission over which Miss Clement ably arid successfully presided. The pale, varl-tinted light of lanterns from the balcony of a ’restaurant across the way, mingling with the flickering yellow beam' of the city’s gas lamps, threw into sharp relief the curious pendent black signs with their red cloth borders and gilded Chinese lettering, hanging before shop doors. It revealed, too, oddly contrasting figures of loungers and pedestrians, residents and visitors. And it bayed, bAck of all that was bizarre, the commonplace brick fronts of the typically American buildings, with their marring gridironing of fire-escapes. To Evelyn, rarely observant, the combination was interesting, but disappointing. “It does not look at all as 1 expected it would,” she said to me. “It hasn’t the air. It is neither one thing nor the other. It is like a stage scene, carelessly mounted.”

As we alighted at the Mission door, the last notes of a familiar hymn, mangled In words and melody almost beyond recognition, flowed out to join the babel of street sounds; and before we could mount the high steps there had begun to' pour forth a motley, malodorous freshet Of felt-shod soles, that gave us pause; blocking, for a few minutes, not merely the ascent but the sidewalk as well. When, at length, the way was clear, and by direction of a youth at the entrance, we had passed through the close, 111-smelling hall, where the lights had already been lowered, we came upon Miss Clement, alone in a little well-ventilated arid brightly-lighted office or parlor, jutting off at the rear. If she was surprised at seeing Evelyn, she gave no sign. She welcomed us both with the smiling cordiality of a life-long friend. But abruptly her smile died.

“I tried to get you on the telephone an hour ago,” she explained, “but there was some trouble with the wire. I hoped to Siave you this journey for nothing.” “Your protege couldn’t come?” I queried. “Unfortunately, no,” she returned, with a little quaver in her voice. “My protege will never come again. He was shot to death. Poor, poor Ling Fo!”

“Shot to death!” I cried, while Evelyn, with cheeks suddenly pale and eyes wide, held her underlip fast between her teeth, and gripped hard on the arihs of the rocking chair in which Miss Clement had placed her. “Yes.” And this strong, sweetfaced, gray-haired woman in gray, her momentarily-lost composure quite recovered, laid a quieting hand softly over Evelyn’s tensed clutch. “Yes. That sort of thing is not unusual down here, you know. There is always more or less bad blood between the tongs. But it was most unfortunate, just at this time, because I feel sure he could have told you something worth learning. I’m glad he was a good boy 4 JH® was one of the few converts that’are really sincere.”

“Perhaps he knew too much,” I suggested.

But Miss Clement made no comment. I fancy it was out of consideration for Evelyn that she refrained from endorsing my conclusion; while I reproached myself for being less thoughtful, I was all the more convinced that I had voiced the motive for the shooting.

As Evelyn did not ask for particulars, I profited by th® lesson thus taught and curbed my curiosity. But I was in no mood to drop the subject. From Miss Clement’s note it was clear that Ling Fo had already communicated to her some of the more important facts in this connection, and of these I hoped to possess myself. “And so, Miss Clement,” I ventured, sharpening my wedge, “Chinatown is mystified, I understand.” She was seated, now, by her little desk, and for a moment had been turning up, searchingly, one paper after another, from an open drawer. At my observation, she paused and raised her glance, a folded sheet of note size in her hand; for a heart-beat her eyes held mine.

“Yes,” she said at length. “Chinatown is all at sea, so to speak.” “Over what?” I pressed. Slowly she unfolded the scrap of writing she held, and before replying she read it through, slowly and deliberately. - -

“If you don’t mind,” she proposed, “I would prefer not to talk;about it. I am in a peculiar position here, Mr. Clyde, as* you can well understand, and I can’t afford to play false to those who trust me. At the same time I do not always know whom among these people to trust Some

qne who knew them very "well wrote, ♦nee upon a time, something like this: You can take a Chink away from his fan, -. ■’ ' '. Away from fils lotteries, fiddles and Joss, You can give his queue to the barber, boss; ■ But you can’t get down to the roots that start From the yellow base of his yellow heart. I And it’s very true. There are those here who pretend to adore me, who would think nothing of treating me as they treated poor Ling Fo, if they suspected I knew anything and gave information.” “I don’t want you to think I’m a coward, Miss’Grayson," she went on, turning to Evelyn. “I think I’ve proved to you that I want to help you and mean to, but I’m rather upset tonight, and I’m so afraid we shall have to let matters rest a little longer. There is one thing, though, that you can do for me, if you will.” The last sentence was addressed to me, and I made haste to assure her that she had only to command me. As she had spoken she had been folding and refolding the paper in her hand, until it was now a tiny, oneinch square.

“Take this,” she said, handing it to me, her voice a low murmur, “and after you have read it, destroy it. I shouldn’t want it found in my possession.”

“I understand, Miss Clement,” I returned and the folded square went into my waistcoat pocket. “It may mean more to you,” she added, in a whisper, “than anything I could say.”

When once more in the brougnam, speeding northward, Evelyn, who had been unusually taciturn throughout the Interview, asked me a question. “Did, you mean what you said, Philip?” “What did I say?” I queried. “That you understood.” "I understood that it might not be well for her to have this letter of Ling Fo’s about.” - “But the rest? Her refusal to talk? Her uneasiness? Her fear of possible traitors?” she persisted. Once more she had gone straight to the heart of the situation. I had been as puzzled as she by the missionary’s attitude'of constraint, which I could not attribute wholly to the tragedy she had told us of; and I admitted as much to Evelyn.

“If she suspected eavesdroppers,” the girl argued, “she said too much. If she didn’t fear being overheard, why couldn’t she tell us all she knew?” For want of a better afiswer I said: “Perhtips the letter will solve the enigma,” and plucking it from my pocket with thumb and forefinger I began carefully to unfold it.

The Interior of the vehicle was brilliantly alight, and though we were already far beyond the Chinatown zone and the chance observation of any lurking spies, I nevertheless chose discreetly to draw the shades prior to outspreading the written page.

Before the sheet with its network of creases was quite flattened, Evelyn, who was bending attentively near, exclaimed in surprise, “It is her own handwriting! See, it is written by Miss Clement herself!”

Already absorbed, I made no response. Avidly my eyes were racing over the lines; greedily, my brain was digesting them. “Tidings of the cruel murder of Ling Fo have just reached me. When you come, as I know you will, I shall not dare to speak.what I have written, and which is all that the poor boy ever told me. Already there are spies about me, and* your visit is a risk to us both. I would have prevented it, if I could.

“Three weeks ago, according to Ling Fo, a white man was abduoted by order of the Six Companies, and shipped to China for punishment aboard a tramp steamer. Ling Fo would not give me the white man’s name or any of the particulars, save that sixteen years ago he bad committed a crime, known to every Chinaman in America as 'The Crime of the Sable Lorcha,* or 'black funeral ship,’ by which nearly one hundred Chinese coolies lost their lives.

“It seems now that this man, who they thought was on the ocean, suddenly reappeared in New York, a few nights ago. He was recognised and set upon by two Chinamen, but be escaped, Six Companies and all the tongh are in a ferment over the mystery.” Evelyn’s hand was on my arm as I read, her face close to mine, reading with me. Having finished, I held the sheet for a moment, waiting for her to, signify that she, too, had reached the end. And in that moment tha brougham came to a sudden halt

‘ Before either of us could voice a word the door on my side was wrenched violently open, and the blue steel muzzle of a revolver covered me. (TO BB CONTINUED.)

A Good Friday Sermon

By REV. JAMES M. GRAY. D. D.

Dcu of the Moody Bible Institute, Chicago

TEXT—“Jesus, whep He had cried again with a loud voice' yielded up the ghost.” Matthew xxvii, 50. „ E

..'1 no other explanation of his death is satisfactory, or even possible, than that he suffered as a substitute for guilty men. We have been trying to recall some of these reasons while meditating on the transcendent event commemorated on Good Friday. • (1) Hit death occupies the foremost place in the New Eestament. There are, for example, twenty-eight chapters in the Gospel of Matthew, and eight of them, at least, or more than one-quarter of the whole, is taken up with the story of his’ crucifixion and the events immediately leading up to and following it. About the same proportion is seen in John’s gospel, to say nothing of the emphasis laid upon his-death in the epistles of Paul and the book of Revelations. •

(2) His death awakened the greatest interest in Heaven as well as on earth, since in Peter’s first epistle, Chapter 1, 12, he tells us that “these things the angels desire (to look into.” Moreover, when Moses and Elijah, brought back to earth, were conversing with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, it was about, “His decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.** (Luke ix, 31.)

(3) It was the central object ever present In Christ's own thought and teaching. Men come into the world to live, but he tells us that he came into the world to die. “The son of man, said he, came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Matt, xx, 28.) In another place, with application to himself, he says, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abldeth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John xil, 24.)

(4) His death was voluntary. In John VII, 30, we read that at a certain crisis, “no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come." And again he himself said, “I lay my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay It down, and I have power to take it again.” (John x, 17, 18.) Furthermore, it is specifically said that in his death he “yielded up the ghost.” In other words, the passing out of his spirit from , his body was the act of his own will. (5) At the same time He died with peculiar agony, not merely that of a physical but a spiritual kind, crying out, “My God! My God!, why hast thou forsaken me?” Whoever heard of God forsaking a martyr to his truth? And if Jesus were forsaken in any sense, must it not have been as a substitute for us?

(6> There were wonderful phenomena accompanying his death as of no other man, —“the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went unto the holy city and appeared unto many." '■(Matt, xxvll, 51, 53.) (7) It was a predicted death. A way back in the Garden of Eden It was pointed to in the words addressed to the serpent, “I will put emnity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Gen. ill, 15.) Isaiah, the prophet, spake of Christ seven or eight centuries before his birth, saying, “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” (53, 5.) And Daniel said be should be cut off, but not for himself. (9, 26.) (8) It was a predestined death, since Peter says, "Yet are not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold ... but with the preclous blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot; who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world.” (9) Finally, It was a death which has been commemorated by an observance that never can be hid or explained away, namely, the communion of the Lord's supper, in which Christians eat the bread dhd drink the wine tn remembrance of his dying love. This is the reason an inspired apostle is able to say, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved.” (Rom. x, 13.)

Iri one of the older commentaries on the Bible, ye once met the question, Why did Jesus Christ die?, Which was answered by a series of reasons, some of which are remembered and some forgotten, the ‘ whole however, making an impression which was never, lost. This impression 'toas that