Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 79, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1913 — Page 2

SYNOPSIS. Robert Cameron, capitalist, consult* Philip Clyde, newspaper publisher, regarding 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. While visiting Cameron tn his dressing room a Nell Gwynne mirror is mysteriously shattered. Cameron becomes seriously ill as a result of the shock. The third letter appears mysteriously on Cameron's sick bed. It makes direct threats against the life 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 arlowed 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. 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. a missionary among the Chinese. He Is siek 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 abdut 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 speaks in a strange tongue. Evelyn declares the man is not her uncle. Evelyn and Clyde call on Miss Clement for promised information and find that the Chinaman who was to give it has just been murdered. Miss Clement gives Clyde tt note, asking him to read it after he leaves the mission and then destroy it. It tells of the abduction of a white man by Chinese who shipped him back to China. The man Is accused of the crime of “Sable Lorcha" in which 100 Chinamen were killed. The appearance in New York of the man they supposed they had shipped to China throws consternation into the Chinese. The brougham in which Clyde and Evelyn are riding in held up by an armed man. Clyde is seized by Murphy and a fight ensues. Evelyn and Clyde are rescued by the police and return home. They find Yup Sing and the Chinese consul awaiting them. Yup tells Clyde the story of the crime of the "Sable Lorcha,” in -which 97 Chinamen were deliberately sent to their death by one Donald M’Nish. whom they declare Is Cameron. They declare that M’Nish can be Identified by a tattoo mark on his arm, Clyde declares that Cameron has no such mark. The nurse Is called In and describes a tattoo mark on his patient’s arm. Clyde goes to Investigate and finds the patient attempting to hide a letter. It Is addressed to Donald M’Nish. The letter is from the man’s mother In Scotland and Identifies the patient as M’Nish. Confronted by the sole survivor of the *Sable Lorcha’’—who, it develops, la Soy. a half-breed Chinaman, recognized by Clyde .as Johnson, the fisherman— M’Nish shoots him and kills himself. Miss Clement gets the whole story from Soy before he dies. Murphy, whose right name ta Moran, had been a partner of M’Nish In the nefarious Chinese trade and later became his most relentless pursuer. He was the author of the threatening letters. Soy was responsible for the mysterious happenings at Cameron’s home by the aid of the ether of invisibility. Cameron was drugged and shipped as a member of the crew of a tramp steamer bound for Hongkong. CHAPTER XXVll.—Continued. So far as I could judge, the Glamorganshire would call at Algiers in a few days; and for a while I considered the advisability of communicating with the United States Consul at that port, through the State Department at Washington. But a knowledge of the tortuous involutions of official red tape deterred me. After all, I believed that if Cameron was to be rescued from the gruelling slavery of servltudle on this British freighter, the work must not be intrusted to the personally disinterested. Thereupon I consulted calendars, steamer schedules, and Continental time-tables. By the fast transatlantic liner sailing on the morrow, I could make Paris in six days. Forty-eight hours later I could be in Brindisi. If good fortune followed, less than four days more would land me at Port Said. It was now Monday, November 23. Twelve days hence would be December Sth, and the Glamorganshire, her agents had told me. could not possibly reach there before December 6th. The margin was not wide, but it seemed to me sufficient, and the thought of further inaction, now that the trail lay bare, was nothing less than unendurable torment. Wisdom, 1 suppose, would have dictated the advisability of securing some badge of authority from my own government before setting forth on a mission involving so delicate a point of international maritime law as that which was here embraced; but the saving of time was with me, just then, the paramount consideration. The loss of a day meant the possible missing not only of connections, but of the main object of my journey; and so, armed with nothing more potent than good health, strong determination, and a well-filled purse I boarded the Kronprtnz Wilhelm and started on my diagonal raoe to head off a quarry which already had twenty-five days’ start of me. Speed being all-important, my wish was to travel alone and unencumbered, but at the last moment I was persuaded to consent to the company of both Evelyn Grayson and Dr. Addison. Realising the brave, unfaltering assistance which the young woman had afforded me from the first, I could hardly refuse to gratify her wish to be preoent at what we both hoped would be the victorious end. Moreover, the

The SABLE LORCHA

By HORACE HAZELTINE

thought of absence from her for a month at least, and probably much longer, was far from the most pleasant contemplation; my yielding, therefore, was not altogether unselfish. Dr. Addison’s case was different. At the last moment he decided to go abroad by the same ship; and, on the way over, touched by his contrition and his almost pathetic desire to make amends to his quondam friend at the earliest possible minute, I myself Invited him to go with us the rest of the way. . ♦ Evelyn had proposed that Mrs, Lancaster should also be included in the party, but this I would not hear of. If, for propriety’s sake, another presence was "necessary, her maid, and, ultimately, Dr. Addison, afforded all the security the conventions could, demand. The fever of haste was upon all of us from the start. The time on shipboard, in spite of our common subject of converse dragged eternally. Should we reach Cherbourg in time to connect with the P. &. O. Express at Paris? That was the one constantly recurring question, to be speculated upon with varying degrees of hope and despair. As good fortune would have it, we made the train with fifteen minutes to spare,, and the run to Brindisi was accomplished without accident or unseemly delay. Here, however, we were compelled to wait six hours. The steamer was late, owing to some seismic disturbance off the coast of Malta, and fear of encountering new and necessarily uncharted volcanic islands, had demanded slow and cautious sailing. However sinister had been the game Fate played with us in the earlier stages of our quest, the favor of its present mood could not be gainsaid. That we were now reasonably sure of reaching- Port Said in advance of the Glamorganshire was in Itself a welcome relief from trying anxiety; but that was only a small part of the banquet of good things provided for us, I was still exercised in a measure over the steps which must be taken to secure Cameron *q release. Without proper Introduction to the authorities, it was becoming more and more a question In my mind whether, after all, I Should be able to accomplish my end in the brief time to which I was restricted. With this fell possibility of failure dinging in my reflections, I was striding the white deck of the P. and O. steamer, in the early morning following the night of our departure from Brindisi, when a hand, dropped heavily on my shoulder, spun me round to face a laughing, sun-browned, young Englishman in white flannels. For just a moment I was literally, as well as figuratively, taken aback, for the tone of the ringing voice which greeted me carried me five years at 'least into the past, when Lionel Hartley and I had ridden to hounds together at Melton Mowbray, while fellow guests at a house-party in the neighborhood. “You bally Yankee!” he was shouting. “Fancy running into you in this fashion! I’m jolly glad to see you, old chap!” Though my delight at seeing him was at that moment tempered by absorbing Interest in my mission, it rose a few minutes later to unadulterated ecstasy, when I discovered that be was stationed at Port Said, and occupied what seemed to me just then one of the most Important posts in the British Foreign Service—secretary to the Governor General for the Suez Canal. "You’re going to Cairo, I suppose?” he hazarded. “No,” I replied. "I’m going with you, and I shall not let you out of my sight, my friend, until you have proved you’re something more than a figurehead stuck up in the Egyptian sands ” "If there’s any lithe thing I can do —” he began; but I interrupted him. "There’s a very big thing you can do,” I corrected. And then I told him. “What a lark!” he cried, refusing to recognize the serious side of it. “Fancy one of your American multimillionaires passing coal on a British freighter?’ “Passing coal!” I exclaimed. “What rot! Surely they wouldn’t —’’ "Oh, wouldn’t they?’ 1 he broke in. “That’s just what they would do. He isn’t an able-bodied seaman, is he? You can safely wager he’s an experienced stoker, or at least a trimmer by this time.” “Don’t, Hartley, don’t,” I protested. “It’s too fcruel to think of.” “Never mind, old chap," was his rejoinder, “There’s a good time coming. We’ll have him out and washed and dressed and sitting at table with us an hour after the old tub lets her anchor drop: And I’ll wager you a tenner that there won’t be a miss in any part of the programme.” When, at breakfast, I told Evelyn the good news—omitting, of course, all reference to the coal-handling suggestion—she demanded that I hunt up Hartley, at once, and present him. Discretion, however, seemed to me in this Instance, the better t>art of obedi-

ence. I did hunt Hartley up and I did present him, but not until I had allowed time for the first flush of Evelyn’s fervor to cool. He was a very good-looking young chap; Evelyn was both grateful and impulsive, and I —was in love. Our landing at Port Said was made on the morning of the fifth of December, and all that day and the next, we waited in more or less constant expectancy and a boiling temperature for tidings of the tardy Glamorganshire. f Hartley, meanwhile, was a model of hospitality,* but Port Said is primarily a coaling station on the sea-edge of the desert, and aside from the Concrete docks, the ships, the light house, and the nearly naked Nubians that swarmed everywhere, it proved utterly lacking in objects of interest. Sunday night brought some small relief from the intolerable heat, and grateful for the respite, ah four of our little party were early to bed. Gradually we had come to believe that our waiting was likely to be prolonged. The earthquake at Malta having delayed one vessel Would in all probability delay others as well. including that which we had come so far to intercept. So, utter)/ worn out, by nervous tension and the fatigue of .the tropical climate, we found rest grateful, and slept soundly. Just how soundly was demonstrated when, at an hour after midnight, three resounding knocks on my hotel chamber door only roused me, dully, and left Evelyn and her maid and Dr. Addison, who occupied adjacent rooms, in deep slumber, totally undisturbed. With what seemed almost superhuman effort, I spurred myself to consciousness and struggled up on elbow. “Who’s there?” I called. “Hartley,” came the answer. “Open the door. I thought ypu’d died of Port Said ennui.” And when I had sleepily risen and admitted him he, went on hurriedly. “Make haste, now, old chap! The bally freighter has just come in, and I don’t propose to lose that tenner through dilatory methods on your part.” But I needed no urging. Wide awake at his first sentence, I was already flinging on my clothes. He still chattered on in his chaffing way, but I scarcely heard him. Conscious only of the murmur of his pleasant, cheery English voice, my thoughts were out in the night, across the waters of the harbor, down in the inferno of a rusty ocean tramp, where a sweating stoker was giving battle to despair—a sweating stoker who, in far-away America, owned a pleasure craft almost as big as the ship whose tires he had been feeding for forty days across two seas. “How about the doctor?" Hartley asked, as I slipped my arms into my coat sleeves and snatched a cap from a closet peg. "It’s too late now,” was my answer. “You .should have reminded me. I forgot all about him.” And it was true. I had forgotten everything, except the imminence of the rescue and the urgency of haste. To one in Cameron’s plight every fretting minute must count a drop of torture. The heavens were with tropic stars, and a faint breeze from the sea gently ruffled the spangled black harbor waters, as Hartley’s launch, guided by a pilot of experience, headed fop the twinkling lights of the recently anchored freighter. Silently I sat, with gaze straining, watching the indicated sparks grow larger and brighter, moment by moment', until at length their gleams reflected in the waves, and their background emerged in a great dark shadow, which silhouetted Itself against the less opaque sky. “There she is!” Hartley cried in en ; thusiasm, as her funnel and masts somberly defined themselves above the black of her hull. "We’ll be able to hall her in another minute.” Then I heard the voice of our helmsman ring out, and presently there Was an answering shout from above, and an exchange of greetings, succeeded by directions; and the next moment, I was following Hartley up a swaying rope-ladder to where an outheld lantern glowed overhead. "Yes, Secretary to the Governor General,” I heard my friend saying, as I put foot on the iron deck. "You’re Captain Murchison, I suppose." The captain’s affirmative was more than deferential; it was obsequious. He was not a tall man, but broad, rugged and bearded, with long, powerful, gorilla-like arms out of all proportion to his stature. I could readily fancy him an ugly antagonist. Unaided by Hartley, I concluded, I should have had small chance Indeed of success. But the low-born Briton’s respect for official authority was evidently strong in him, and I felt that if Cameron was aboard we should be able to effect his rescue with a minimum of effort. “I should like to see you in your cabin, Captain,” Hartley proposed, and when, we were closeted there, he continued: "There is a report that you have among your craw a United States subject who was brought aboard, drugged, and forced to remain aboard

CQPY/PJG/rf X C Sf?CJLW?G &. CO.,

against his will. His government has interested itself in his behalf, and unless he is restored at. onoe to his friends serious complications will undoubtedly ensue.” The captain, despite his respect for authority, frowned. “There’s nothing to that report, sir," he said, boldly. “Pm not shanghaiing men in these days, sir. Every mother's son I’ve got on this boat shipped for Hong Kong, sir, of his own free will and accord.” “I dare say you fully believe that. Captain Murchison,” was Hartley’s diplomatic rejoinder, “but this time you happen to be mistaken. I don’t suppose you have any objection to our inspecting your crew, have you ? Suppose you have both the watches piped forward, and we’ll settle this little business for ourselves. Mr. Clyde, here, knows the man.” Captain Murchison’s glance at me was undisguisedly venomous. Reluctantly he rang for his steward. “Send the bo’stm here,” he directed, doggedly. "We’ll begin at the bottom. Captain,” Hartley 'suggested, when the boatswain, cap in hand, stood in the doorway, "first, I want to see every man Jack you have working in the stoke hold." Although the masiergave the necessary I mistrusted him. Between the boatswain and himself I felt that there was an understanding which required neither voicing nor signal. And as, a little later, we stood on the forward deck, under the bridge, and by the light of, a lantern viewed one after anpther of those swarthy, grimy laborers who had crowded up from below, I was convinced of the correctness of my intuition. For Cameron was not among them. Apd then a chill fear gripped me. Could a man of his habits and training, suddenly called upon to assume such labor, survive its rigors? He was naturally robust, but he had been weakened by an illness. Might he not therefore have succumbed, to the strain, died, and been buried at "Beat But one consideration sustained me. .Incthelr cunning cruelty, the Chinese who had arranged for his transportation must have stipulated that he be delivered in- China alive. Otherwise their vengeance would not be complete. It was not likely that anything had been left to mere chance. The probabilities wene that Murchison knew definitely what was required of him and was to be well paid for his services. Upon his seamed face, now, there was something of a sneer as, our examination concluded, he said: “What next, Mr. Hartley?” But for a moment Hartley, who was standing thoughtfully with brow contracted,xhis lower lip gripped between finger and thumb, made no response. Before he spoke his attitude changed. Quickly he had assumed a pose of listening Intentness. Behind us, somewhere, a clamor had arisen. Voices, excited, hoarse, fremescent, yet muffled by distance, echoed dully. “That man, next, Captain,” he k said, coolly. “The man they’re trying to keep belqw.” It may have been that his hearing was more acute than mine, or it may only have been a guess. I don’t know. But, whichever it was, it hit the mark. It scored a bull’s eye at long range. Captain Murchison’s indifference gave way instantly to palpable uneasiness. His hands, which had been deep in his coat pbekets, came out as though jerked by springs. One of them canted his cap from his brow to his crown and the other clutched agitatedly at his beard. And in that moment the riot advanced, the voices waxed louder and more distinct; scurrying feet resounded on the metal deck. I saw the captain start hurriedly toward, the starboard rail, intent evidently on meeting the rabble which was approaching on that side, and I saw Hartley boldly block his way. And then, almost at the same instant, I saw a tall figure with naked torso* as black and shining as polished ebony —black with grime and shining with sweat —come running backward around the corner of the deck house. Saw it with an iron bar held menacingly aloft against its pressing pursuers; and even in the uncertain light of the deck lanterns, recognized it at onoe, by its outline and the characteristic set of its head. upon its shoulders, nude to the waist and collled as it was, as the figure of the man I sought “Cameron!" I cried, chokingly, my fast-beating heart crowding my utterance. And all unmindful of the dirt whlth covered him I flung my arms about his waist from behind. “Cameron! Cameron! Thank God! Thank God J" I heard the iron bar drop resoundingly to the deck; I heard Hartley's voice raised in anger, strident, staccato; and I heard the receding shuffle of feet as those who had pursued now backed away. There followed then a moment of silence, while the body I had held twisted out of my arms, and having released itself, turned and

faced me—a moment of silence, only, for against the sudden stillness there now rang out a,weird, palpitant cry, born of surcharged emotion, as Cameron, casting himself forward into my arms, buried his face in the angle of my neck and shoulder. CHAPTER XXVJIL . A Final Problem. It is doubtful whether in all Egypt there was ever such another period of joyous thanksgiving as that which followed the bringing of Cameron to the little hotel in Port Said. I am inclined to question, too, whether in the space of a single waking day four persons ever talked more, or with more mutual interest, than did the four of us there gathered. The heat, the files, the poor food, and the miserable accomodations, generally, were not merely gladly tolerated, but absolutely disregarded. In the exuberance of our rejoicing, annoyances which had loomed large on the preceding day dwindled to the imperceivabte; and from early morning until late night experiences were exchanged, adventures told and speculations indulged in. Washed, scrubbed, shaved, shorn and clad in raiment put at his disposal by the indefatigable Hartley, Cameron appeared wonderfully well-looking. Indeed I was amazed by his appearance and by his condition. I had feared to find him a mental and physical ruin. I had feared even for his life. And he had come to us, if we might judge by outwar.d seeming, stronger, more robust, less nervously relaxed than when he disappeared.

"At first,” he told us, as we sat at breakfast in a little upper room qf the hotel, Evelyn close on his right, Dr. Addison at his left, and I opposite him, "I suppose I did suffer, whenever I was conscious, which, fortunately, I think, was comparatively seldom. They dosed me almost continuously with what I believe to have been some attribute of opium, so that even in my waking moments I was not wholly mal. 'ln this way, of course, I lost all count of time. And so, too, I am unable to give events in sequence. , My first conscious moment after being on the deck of the Sibylla found me strapped in a narrow berth on a rapid, but rather rough-riding craft of apparently much smaller dimension than the yacht, and with a Chinese boy sitting beside me. You can fancy my startled amazement at the sudden transition. In vain I asked questions. In vain I struggled to rise. Then I shouted, and the Chinese boy lighted what appeared to be an ordinary jossstick on a stand at the head of my berth, and withdrew from the tiny cabin. Insensibility followed quickly. After that I have a vague, dreamy recollection of eating something with a strange, spicy flavor, which seemed only to add to my stqpor. Once I dreamed —at least I think it must have been a dream—that'l was in a dark box, so cramped that my bones ached, and that far away above me were little holes through which the light came in luminous fan-like rays that glowed against the black." "I’m inclined to think it was no dream,” I put in, recalling the newspaper story I had read in my broker’s office, in Wall street. “The probabilities are that you were shipped in that box from Fall River to New York, and a certain influential Chinaman, called Yup Sing, knew all about it.” “It’s quite possible,” Cameron went on. “I know that it was very difficult to distinguish, in those days, between dreams and realities. Eventually,* however, I awoke to find myself on the Glamorganshire, quartered with the men in the forecastle, a beard well grown and my clothes the coarsest sort of mariner’s outfit. For a while I was far too 111 for labor. The reaction from the drugs which had been administered caused me the keenest suffering. But, gradually, I came about, and was set to work with paint pot and brush. The humanity showp me at this time was surprising. I couldn’t comprehend it. But I realized eventually that my strength was being fostered for future torment" (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Eye For Business.

In one of the missions along North Ninth strdet the other evening sat a man, who apparently had tarried too long in firinking places. As the meeting advanced he livened up and put a quarter in the tambourine as it was passed along. This caused a chorus of approval from the workers, one of whom went down to the man and besought him to give a testimony. After some hesitation the man arose to his feet and in a choked voice related his experiences. Finally he spoke of the many saloons catering to the thirst aad stated his desire to see all, excepting one, put out of business. A chorus of “Amens” greeted this statement, but not quite satisfied, one of the workers asked him why he would leave one and destroy all the rest. Slowly sthe man rumbled forth, “So I could run it mv—if Philadelphia Record.

The ONLOOKER S.E.KISER

PASSTORT

The land of little trouble Iles beyond no stormy sea. And the highway leading to it from dread obstacles is free; No wild beasts crouch low to frighten those who blithely journey there, And the burdens that they carry are all easy ones to bear. You may start upon that highway, leaving trouble in the rear, -Having not a care to fret you,- not anenemy to fear; You will find the Inns all spacious and the landlords glad to please, There will be a cheering promise torn* along on every breeze. J But before you start your jou.rney on the bi;oad and pleasant way You will have to get a passport to exhibit day by day; It will show that you are worthy of contentment and repose And unwilling to be worried by imaginary • woes. .»

Irony of Fate.

“Pa, what’s the irony of fate?” “I’ll try to explain it as well as I cap. I once had a strong desire to save up something for a rainy day. , I denied myself many pleasures so that I might put by 'a little from time to time, and at last I had quite a neat little pile.” / “What happened then?” "One night yoiff mother became possessed of a foolish idea that she smelled smoke, and when she stuck her head out of the window one of our neighbors turned in ah alarm. The department quickly responded and before I could get my trousers on they had knocked a hole in the roof and absolutely ruined everything I had saved up for the rainy day, by pouring water on it.” *

In the Wrong Place.

“The great trouble with most of us is that we are continually putting the right thing in the wrong place.” “I know it. Yesterday when I waa putting a'letter in one of the pockets of my office coat, as I supposed, 1 actually put it into a pocket of the coat that I afterward wore home. Do you suppose you would have any influence in keeping certain things out of the papers?”

Modern Child.

“Whete do you live, my little man?" “I ain’t got no regular home.” “Haven’t any home? Why, that’s strange. You have good clothes to wear and you look as if you had plenty to eat.” “Yes, but part of the time I stay with mamma and part of the time papa has me, and the rest of the time I’m in the custody of the court.”

One Thing Left for Him.

"Why are you always finding fault with me? Ido the best I can to make you happy?” "There’s one thing my first husband did to make me happy that you’ve never done.” "What’s that?” "He died.”

Mme. Elan.

“Ma, the critic in his account of this musicale' you and pa went to night before last says the fiddler played with elan. Did you notice it?” "No—unless that was the name of the woman who accompanied him on the piano.” But, Oh, the Difference to Him. “Well, I’m glad hips are no longer in ' fashion.” . “What difference does it make to you?” "My wife and I can sit side by side In our flat.”

Weapons.

“A woman’s most dangerous weep one are her eyes." ■*Well, I don’t know about that. Did you ever encounter a- pin in a worn* an’s belt?”

Art and Riches.

We have never met an artist who was not willing to be spoiled by prosperity.