Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1916 — The THOUSANDTH WOMAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The THOUSANDTH WOMAN

by ERNEST W. HORNUNG

Author of *6heAMATEUR CRACKSMAN. PAFFIFS Fir. gfiSsfesL*

CHAPTER I. A Small World. Cazalet sat up bo suddenly that hla head hit the woodwork over the upper berth. His own voice atiH rang in his startled ears. He wondered how much he had said, and how far It could have carried above the throb of the liner’s screws and the mighty pounding of the water against her plates. And then he remembered how he had been left behind at Naples, and rejoined the Kaiser Fritz at Genoa, only to find that he no longer had a cabin to himself. A sniff assured Caaalet that he was neither alone at the mopaent nor yet the only one awake; he pulled back the swaying curtain, and there on the aettee--aafc~a-B»a with- a strong blue chin and the quizzical solemnity of an animated sphinx. It was his cabin companion, an American named Hilton Toye, and Cazalet addressed him with nervous familiarity. -"T mvl gave I been talking In say fl66p ? M "Why, yes!" replied Hilton Toye, and broke Into a smile that made a human being of hto» Cazalet forced a responsive grin. "What did I say?” he asked, with an amused curiosity at variance with his shaking hand, and shining forehead. Toye took him in from crown to fingertips, with something deep behind his kindly smile. "I judge.” said he, "you were dreaming of some drama —you’ve been seeing ashore, Mr. Cazalet." “Dreaming!” said Cazalet, wiping his face. "It was a nightmare! I must have turned in too Boon after dinner. But I should like to know what I said." “I can tell you word for word. You said, ‘Henry Craven—dead!' and then you said, ‘Dead—dead —Henry Craven!’ as if . you’d got to have it both ways to make sure." “It’s true,” said Cazalet, shuddering. "I saw him lying dead. In my dream.” Hilton Toye took a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. “Thirteen minutes to one in the morning,” he said, , “and now it’s September eighteenth. Take a note of that, Mr. Cazalet. It may be another case of second sight for your psychical research society." “I don’t care if it is.” Cazalet was smoking furiously. “Meaning it was no great friend you dreamed was dead?” — “No friend at all, dead or alive!” "I’m kind of wondering,” said Toye, winding his watch slowly, “if he’s by way of being a friend of mine. I know a Henry Craven over in England. Lives along the river, down Kingston way, in a big house.” “Called Uplands?” ? ‘Yes. sir! That’s the man. Little world, isn't It?” The man In the upper berth had to hold on as his curtains swung clear; the man tilted baok on the settee, all attention all the time, was more than ever an effective foil to him. Without the kindly smile that went as quickly as it came, Hilton Toye was somber* subtle and demure. Cazalet, on the other hand, was of sanguine complexion and Impetuous looks. He was tanned a rich bronze about the middle of the face, but it broke off across hiß forehead like the coloring of a meerschaum pipe. Both men were In their early prime, and each stood roughly for his race and type: the traveled American who knows the world, and the elemental Britisher who has made some one loose end of ft his own. "f thought of p my Henry Craven,” continued Toye, “as soon as ever you came out with yours. But it seemed a kind of ordinary name. L might have known it was the same If I’d recollected the name of his firm. Isn’t it Craven & Cazalet, the stockbrokers, down In Tokenhouse Yard?" “That’s it." said Cazalet bitterly. ‘*Bol there have been none of us in It since my father died ten years ago.” “But you're Henry Craven’s old partner’s son?" “I’m his only son.” “Then no wonder you dream about Henry Craven," cried Toye, “and no wonder It wouldn’t break your heart if your dream came true.” "It wouldn’t,” said Cazalet through his teeth. “He wasn’t a white man to - or mine—whatever you may have found him." —------- "I had ft little Place near his one summer. I know only what I heard down there." - - - ~” "What did you hear?" asked Cazalet. “Fve been away ten years, ever since the crash that ruined everybody but tbs man at the bottom Of the whole thing. It would be a kindness to tell me what you heard." "Well, I guess you've said It yourself right now. That man seeps to have fyegg&T** everybody all Tironnd except himself; that’s how I make It out," said HUton Toye. “He did worse," said Cazalet through his teeth. "He killed my poor father; he banished me to the wilds of Australia; and he sent a better than than himself to prison for fourteen years!" Toye opened bis dark eyes for once. ... ■

"Is that so? No. I never heard that,” said he. "You hear it now. He did all that, indirectly, and I didn’t realize it at the time. I was too young, and the whole thing laid me out too flat; but I know it now, and I’ve known it long enough. It was worse than a crash. It was a scandal. That was what finished us off, all but Henry Craven! There’d been a gigantic swindle —special investments recommended by the firm, bogus certificates and all the rest of it We were all to blame, of course. My poor father ought never to have been a poet. Even I —l was only a youngster in the office, but I ought to have known what was going On. But Henry Craven did know. He was in it up to the neck, though a fellow called Scruton did the actual job. Scruton got fourteen years—and Craven got our old house on the river.” “And feathered it pretty well!” said Toye, nodding. “Yes, I did hear that. And I can tell you they don’t think any better of., him, in the .neighborhood, for going to live right there. But how did he stop the other man’s mouth, and —how do you know?” "Never mind how I know,” said Cazalet. “Scruton was a friend of mine, though an older man; he was good to me, though he was a wrong ’un himself. He paid for it —paid for two —that I can say! But he was engaged to Ethel Craven at the time, was going to be taken into partnership on their marriage, and you can put two and two together for yourself.” “Did she wait for him?” “About as long as you’d expect of the breed! She was her father’s daughter. I wonder you didn’t come across ljer and her husband!” "I didn’t see so much of the Craven crowd,” replied Hilton Toye. “I wasn’t stuck on them either. Say, Cazalet, I wouldn’t be that old man when Scruton comes out, would you?” But Cazalet showed that he could hold his tongue when he liked, and his grim look was not so legible as some that had come and gone before. This one stuck until Toye produced a big flask from his grip, and the talk shifted to less painful ground. It was the last night in the Bay of Biscay, and Cazalet told how be bad been in it a fortnight on his way out by sailingvessel. He even told It with considerable humor, and bit off sundry passengers of ten years ago as though they had been aboard the German boht that night and Toye drew him out about the bush until the shadows passed for minutes from .the red-brick face with the white-brick forehead. "I remember thinking I would dig for gold," said Cazalet. ‘That’s all I knew about Australia, But you can have adventures of sorts if you go far enough up-country for 'em; it still pays to know how to use your fists out there. I remember once at a bush shanty they dished up Buch fruity chops that I said I’d fight the cook if

they’d send him up; and I’m blowed if it wasn’t a fellow I’d been at school with .and worshiped .as no end of a swell at games! Potts his name was, old Venus Potts, the best looking chap In the school among other things ; and there he was, cooking carrion at twenty-five bob a week! Instead of fighting we joined forces, got a burrcutting job on a good station, then a better one over shearing, and after that I wormed my way in as bookkeeper, and my pal became one of the head overseers. Now we’re our own bosses with a share in the show, and the owner comes up only once a year to see how things are looking." "I hope he had a daughter," said Toye, “and that you’re going to marry her, if you haven’t yet?” Cazalet laughed, but riie shadow had returned. “No. I left that to my paL” he said. “He did thatall right!" —-— “Then I advise you to go and do likewise," rejoined his new friend with a geniality Impossible to take amiss, “t shouldn’t wonder, now, If there’s some gftf you left behind you." Cazalet shook his bead. “None who would look on herself in that light,” be interrupted. It was all be said, 1 - ’ ■ • T

tout once more Toy *M regarding him as shrewdly as when the night was younger, and the littleness of the world had not yet made them confidant and boon companion. Eight bells actually Btruck before their great talk ended and Cazalet swore that he missed the "watches aft, sir!”, of the sailing-vessel ten years before. “Say!” exclaimed Hilton, Toye, knitting his brows over some nebulous recollection of his own. “I seem to have heard of you and some of your yarns before. Didn’t you spend nights in a log-hut miles and miles from any human being?” It was as they were turning in at last, but the question spoiled a yawn for Cazalet. “Sometimes, at one of our out-sts-tions,” said he, looking puzzled. “I’ve seen your photograph,” said Toye, regarding him with a more critical stare. "But lt-was with a beard." “I had it off when I was ashore the other day," said Cazalet. “I always meant to, before the end of the voyage.” , "I see. It was a Miss Macnair showed me that photograph—Miss Blanche Macnair liveain a little house down- there near your old home. I

judge hers4s another old home that’s been broken up Bince your day.” “They’ve all got married,” said Cazalet. “Except Miss Blanche. You write to her some, Mr. Cazalet?” “Once a year—regularly. It was a promise. We were kids together," he explained, as he climbed back into the upper berth. , _ “Guess you were a lucky kid,” said the voice below. “She’s one in a. thousand, Miss Blanche Macnair!” CHAPTER 11. Second Sight. Southampton Water was an ornamental lake dotted with fairy lamps. It was a midsummer night, lagging a whole season behind its fellows. But already It was so late that the English passengers on the Kaiser Frit* had abandoned all thought of catching the last train to London. They tramped the deck In their noisy, shining, shore-going boots; they manned the rail in lazy inarticulate appreciation of the nocturne in blue stippled with green and red and countless yellow lights. But Achilles In his tent was no more conspicuous absentee than Cazalet in his cabin as the Kaiser Fritz steamed sedately up Southampton Water. - He had finished packing; the stateroom floor was impassable with the baggage that Cazalet had wanted on the flve-weeks’ voyage. There was scarcely room to sit down, but in what there wqs sat Cazalet like a soul In torment. All the vultures of the night before, of his dreadful dream, and of the poignant reminiscences to which his dream had led, might have been gnawing at his vitals as he sat there waiting to set foot once more In the land from which a bitter# blow had driven him. Yet the bitterness might have been allayed by the consciousness that he, at any rate, had turned It to account. It had been, indeed, the making of him; thanks to that stem incentive, even some of the sweets of a deserved success were already his. But there was no hint of complacency in Cazalet’s clouded face and attitude. His face was pale, even in that torrid zone between the latitudes protected in the bush by beard and wideawake. And he Jumped to hist-feet as suddenly as the screw stopped for the first time. The same thing happened again and yet again, as often as ever the engines paused before the end. Cazalet up and watch his stateroom dobr with clenched fists and haunted eyes. But it was some long time before the door flew open, and then slammed behind Hilton Toye. Toye was in a state of excitement even more abnormal than Cazalet’s nervous despondency, which indeed It prevented him from observing. It was instantaneously clear that Toye was astounded, thrilled, almost triumphant, but as yet just drawing the line at that. A newspaper fluttered in his hand. “Second sight?” he ejaculated, as though It were the night before ftpd Cazalet still ghaken by hls dream. ‘T guess you've got It in full measure, pressed down and running over, Mr. Cazalet!" • (TO BE CONTINUED.)

"I Say—Have I Been Talking In My Sleep?”

“Second Sight!” He Ejaculated, as Though It Were the Night Before.