Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1893 — Page 6

THE PERILS OF Certain Eoglish Prisoners

, By Charles Dickens, (1857) CHAPTER I— Continued. 3 One of their three little children was deaf and dumb. Miss Maryon had been from the first with all the children, soothing them and dressing them (poor little things, they bad been brought out of their beds) and making them believe it was a game of play, so that some of them were now even laughing. I had been working hard with the others at the barricade, and had got up a pretty good breastwork within the gate. Drooce and the seven had come back, bringing in the people from the SignalHjU,andhad worked.along with, us; but I had not so much as spoken a word to Drooce, nor had Drooce so much as spoken a word to me, for we were both too busy. The breastwork was now finished, and I found Miss Maryon at my side with a child in her arms. Her dark hair was fastened round her head with a band. She had a quantity of it, and it looked even richer and more precious, put up hastily out of her way, than I had seen it look when carefully arranged. She was very pale, but extraordinarily quiet" and still. “Dear, good Davis,” said she, “I

I HAD A LOT OF MALTESE AND MALAYS UPON ME.

have been waiting to speak cne word to you." __ I turned to her directly. If I had received a musket-ball in the head and she had stood there I almost believe I should have turned to her before I dropped. “This pretty little creature,” said she, kissing the child in her arms, who was playing with her hair and trying to pull it down, “can not hear what we say —can hear nothing. I trust you so much, and have such great confidence in you that I want you to make me a 'promise.” “What is it, Miss?” “That if we are defeated and you are absolutely sure of my being taken, you will kill me.” “I shall not be alive to do it, Miss. I shall have died in your defense before it comes to that. They must step across my body to lay hands on you.” . “But if you are alive, you brave soldier.” How she looked at me! “And if you cannot save me from the pirates living, you will save me dead. Tell me so.” I told her I would do that at the last if all else failed. She took my hand —my rough, coarse hand —and put it to her lips. She put it to the child’s lips and the child kissed it. I believe I had the strength of a half dozen men in me from that moment until the light was over. All this time Mr. Commissioner Pordage had been wanting to make a proclamation to the pirates to lay down their arms and go away, and everybody had been hustling him about and tumbling over him while he was calling for pen and ink to write it with. Mrs. Pordage, too. had some curious ideas about the British respectability of her nightcap (which had so many frills to it, growing in layers one inside the other, as if it were a vegetable of the artichoke sort), and she wouldn’t take the nightcap off, and would be angry when it got crushed by the other ladies who were handling things about, and she made as much trouble as her husband did. But as we were now forming for the defense of the place, they were both poked out of the way with no ceremony. The children and ladies were got into the little trench which surrounded the silver-house (we were afraid of leaving them in any of the light buildings, lest they should be set on fire), and we made the best disposition we could. There was a pretty good store, in point of amount, of tolerable swords and cutlasses. Those were issued. There were, also, perhaps a score or So of spare muskets. Those were' brought out. To my astonishment, Ijttle Mrs. Fisher, that I had taken for a doll and i babf, was notbnly Very active la that serrioe, but.' volunteered to Ipad the spare arms, : r. “Fori understand it well," says cheerfully, Without a in her vole* iaue/w ... iH»ssss»’ „■ <3 ««<•'

too,’’.says Miss Maryon, just In the Steady and busy behind where I stood those two beautiful and delicate young women fell to handling the guns, hammering the flints, looking to the locks and quietly directing others to pass up powder and bullets from hand to hand as unfl in ching as the best of tried soldiers. Sergt. Drooce had brought in word that the pirates were •strong in numbers —over a hundred was his estimate —and that they were not even then all landed, for,lie had seen them in a very good position on the further side of the Signal Hill, evidently waiting for the rest of the men to come up. In the present pause, the first we had had since the alarm, he was telling this over again to Mr. Macey, when Mr. Macev‘Suddenly cried out: “The Signal! Nobody has thought of the signal!” We knew of no signal, so we could not have thought of it, “What signal do you mean, sir?” says Sergt. Drooce, looking sharp at him. “There is a pile of wood upon the Signal Hill. If it could be lighted—which never has been done yet—it would be a signal of distress to the mainland.” Charker cries directly: “Sergt. Drooce, dispatch me on that duty. Give me the two men who were on guard with me to-night, and I’ll light the fire if it can be done.”

1 “And if it can’t, Corporal—” Mr. Macey strikes in. “Look at these ladies and children, sir!” says Charker. “I’d sooner light myself, than not try any chance to save them.” We gave him a hurrah! —it burst from us, come of it what might — and he got his two men, and was let out at the gate and crept away. I had no sooner come back to my place from being one of the party to handle the gate, than Miss Maryon said in a low voice behind me: “Davis, will you look at this powder. This is not right?” I turned my head. Christian George King again, and treachery again! Sea water had been conveyed into the magazine, and every grain of powder was spoiledl “Stay a moment,” said Sept. Drooce when I had told him without causing a movement in a muscle in his face, “look to your pouch, my ■ lad. You, Tom Packer, look to your pouch, confound you! Look to your pouches, all you marines.” The same artful savage had got at them, somehow or another, and the ; cartridges were all unserviceable, j “Hum!” says the Sergeant, “look to i your loading, men. You are right so far?” Yes; we were right so far. “Well, my lads, and gentlemen all,” says the Sergeant, “this will be a hand-to-hand affair, and so much the better.” ‘He treated himself to a pinch of snuff and stood up, square-shoul-dered and broad-chested, in the light of the moon —which was now very bright—as cool as if he was waiting for a play to begin. He stood quiet, and we all stood ouiet, for the matter of something like half an hour. I took notice from such whispered talk as there was, how little we, that the silver did not belong to, thought about it, and how much that the people it did belong to thought about it. At the end of the half hour it was reported from the gate that Charker and the two were falling back on us, pursued by about a dozen. “Sally! Gate party, under Gill Davis,” says the Sergeant, “and bring ’em in. Like men, now!" We were not long about it. and we brought them in. ‘‘Don’t take me,” says Chalker, holding me around the neck aud stumbling down at my feet when the gate was fast,"“don’t .take me near the ladies or the children. Gill. They had better not see death till it cannot be helped. They’ll see it soon enough.”——:—— “Harry!" I answered, holding up his head. “Comrade!" He was cut to pieces. The signal had been secured by the first pirate party that landed; his hair was all singed off, and his face was blackened with the running pitch from a tprcn,, .... t. <- 4 i .1/ i-auHfr He made no complaint of pain, or. of anything. “Good-bye, old was all ho said, with smile. “I’ve ii<d ’-.'flijnxn! Bdt tmatns odw'.d©«a

Having helped, to lay hia poor body on one-side 1 went back to my post.? Sergt. Drooce looked at me, with his eyebrows a little lifted. I nodded. “Close up here men, and gentlemen all!” said the Sergeant. “A place too many in the line.” The pirates wer e so close upon us at this time that the foremost of them were already before the gate. More and more came up with a great Soise and shouting loudly. When we believed from the sound that they were all there we gave them three English cheers. The poor little children joined and were so fully convinced of our being at play that they enjoyed the noise and were heard clapping their hands in the silence that followed. Our disposition was this, beginning wjth the rear..,Mrs. Venning, holding her child in her arm, sat on the steps of the little square trench surrounding the silver house, encouraging and directing those women and children as she might have done in the happiest and easiest time of her life. Then there was an armei line under Mr. Macey across the width of the inclosure, facing that way and having their backs tow ard the gate, in order that they might watch the walls and prevent our being taken by surprise. And then there was a space of about eight or ten feet deep in which the spare arms were,and in which Miss Maryon and|Mrs. Fisher, their hands and dresses blackened with the spoilt gunpowder, worked on their knees, tying such things as knives, old bayonets and spear heads to the muzzles of useless muskets. Then there was a second armed line, under Sergt. Drooce, also across the width of the inclosure, but facing the gate. Then came the breastwork we had made, with a siz-zag way through it for me and my little party to hold good in retreatingas long as we could when we were driven from the gate. We all knew that it was impossible to hold the place long, and that our only hope was in the timely discovery of the plot by the boats and in their coming back.

I and my men were now thrown forward to the gate. From a spyhole, I could see the whole crowd of Pirates. There were Malays among them, Dutch, Maltese, Greeks, Sambos, Negroes, and convict Englishmen from the West India Islands; among the last, him with the one eye and the patch acress the nose. There were some Portuguese, too, and a few Spaniards. The captain was a Portuguese; a little man with very large earrings, under a very broad hat, and a great bright shawl twisted about his shoulders. They were all strongly armed, but like a boarding party, with pikes, swords, cutlasses, and axes. I noticed a good many pistols, but not a gun of any kind among them. This gave me to understand that they had considered that a continued roll of musketry might perhaps have Heard on the mainland; also, that for the reason that fire would be seen from the mainland, they would not set the Fort in flames and roast us alive; which was one of their favorite ways of carrying on. I looked about for Christian George King and if I had seen him I am much mistaken if he would not have received my one round of ball cartridge in his head. But no Christian George King was visible. A sort of a wild Portuguese demon, who seemed either fierce-mad or fierce-drunk —but they ail seemed either one or the other —came forword with the black flag, and gave it a wave or two. After that the Portuguese captain called out in shrill English: “I say! you English fools! Open the gate! surrender!”

As we kept close and quiet,.„hesaid something to his men which I didn’t understand, and when he had said it, the one-eyed English rascal with the patch (who had stepped out when he began), said it again in English. It was only this: “Boys of the black flag, this is to be quickly done. Take all the prisoners you can. If they don't yield kill the children to make them. Forward.” Then, they all came at the gate, and in another half minute were splashing and splitting it in. We struck at them through the gaps and shivers, and we dropped many of them, too; but their very weight would have carried such a gate, if they had been unarmed. I spon found Sergt. Drooce at my side, forming us six remaining marines in line—Tom Packer next to me—and ordering us to fall back three paces and, as they broke in, to give them our one little Volley at short distance. “Then,” says he, “receive them behind your breastworks on the bayonet, and at least let every man of you pin one of the cursed cockchafers through the body!” We checked them by our fire, slight as it was, and we checked them at the breastwork. However, they broke over it like swarms of devils —they were, really and truly, more devils than men — and then it was hand to hand indeedWe clubbed our muskets and laid about us; even then those two ladies —always behind me —were steady and ready with the arms. I had a lot of Maltese and Malays upon me, and, but for a broadsword that Miss Maryon’s own hand put in mine, should have got my •end from them. But, was that all? No, I saw a heap of banded dark ’Kali' and a white dress comes thrice between me and thdnd;' under my own, raised right arm, which eaph. time might have destroyed,the wCarer of the White dress; aiid eich ifitiri orter-'df "this' 'fot' 'went dbWtv,-

sword, too; and did such things with it that there was a cry, in half a dozen languages, of “Kill that Sergeant!” as I know, by the cry being raised in English and taken up in other tongues. I had received a severe cut across the left arm a few moments before, and should have known nothing of it, except supposing that somebody had struck me a smart blow, if I had not felt weak, and seen myself covered with spouting blood, and at the same instant of time seen Miss Maryon tearing her dress and binding it with Mrs. Fisher's help round the wound. They called to Tom Packer, who was scouring by, to stop and guard me for one minute, while I was bandaged, or I would bleed to death in trying to defend myself. Tom stopped directly, with a good sabre in his hand. In that same moment —all things' seem to happen in that same moment, at such a time—half a dozen had rushed howling at Sergt. Drooce. The Sergeant, stepping back against the’wall, stopped one howl forever with such a terrible blow, and waited for the rest to come on, with such a wonderfully unmoved that they stopped and looked at him. “See nimnow!” cried Tom Packer, “now when I could cut him out! Gill! Did I tell you to mark my words?” I implored Tom Packer in the Lord’s name, as well as I could in my faintness, to go to the Sergeant's aid. “I hate and detest him,” said Tom, moodily wavering. “Still he is a brave man.” Then he calls out: “Sergeant Drooce, Sergeant Drooce! Tell me you have driven me too hard, and are sorry for it.” “No, I won’t.” “Sergeant Drooce!.” cried Tom, in a kind of agony. “I have passed my word that I would never save you from death, if I could, but would leave you to die. Tell me you have driven me too hard and are sorry for it, and that shall go for nothing.” One of the group laid the Sergeant’s bald head open. The Sergeant laid him dead. “I tell you,” says the Sergeant, breathing a little short, and waiting for the next attack, “no, I won’t. If you are not mau enough to strike for a fellow.-soldier because he wants help and because of nothing else, I’ll go into the other world and look for a better man.” Tom swept upon them and cut him out. Tom and he fought their way through another lot of them and sent them flying and came over to where I was beginning again to feel, with inexpressible joy, that I had got a sword in my hands. They had hardly come to us when I heard, above all the other noises, a tremendous cry of women’s voices. I also saw Miss Maryon, with quite a new face, suddenly clap her two hands over Mrs. Fisher’s eyes. L looked towards the silver-house and saw Mrs. Venning —standing upright on the top of the steps of the trench, with her gray hair and her dark eyes—hide her daughter’s child behind her, among the folds of her dress, strike a pirate with her other hand, and fall, shot by his pistol. (to be continued.)'

A Trifle Too Leisurely.

Pittsburg Dispatch. She wasn’t blessed with much beauty, but she was dressed and had the appearance of being exact. She She came into the Union depot and tripped to the ticket office. The big clock on the wall said it was exactly —p. m. “What time does the next train leave for Chicago?” she asked. “It will start in five minutes.” “How much is the fare?” “Twelve dollars.” “I thought it was only ten. “Twelve dollars is the usual fare.” —“Will it be any cheaper to-mor-row?” “Not a cent." “Well, I’ll take a ticket!” “Here you are.” “Can you change a SSO bill?” “Yes, change a SSOO bill.” It took her some time to gather up her change and stow it away. When she had performed the operation, she smiled and asked: “What time died you say the train went?” “The train is gone. There will be another one to Chicago to-mor-row morning.” It was then that the woman vented her wrath upon the ticket seller, but three other people who had been waiting in line behind, and who had also missed the train, smiled grimly.

A Few Riddles Solved.

Good Houxekaeplng. Feet have they, but they walk not —stoves. Eyes have they, but they see not — potatoes. Teeth have they, but they chew not—saws. Noses have they, but they smell not —teapots, .> Mouths have they, but they taste not —rivers. Hands have they, but they handle not—clocks. Ears have they, but they hear not —corn stalks. Tongues have they, but they talk not —wagons.

Hard Work.

Tivmu. : , ■ ■ ~ A little girl has an uncle, who has taught Mr so opin and shut his crush hat: The btn&r dVetiing; Hbw-' ever, Ae -appeared with < an' or<j innry silk QEk tl , . < Spdd?niy ; e*F ifhb oi|wl if. :tfoh unoU, Wdhe said’ /htX’.k: ife • ■WjWwiWK"" 1 ’

RELIGIOUS EXPOSITION

Observance of the Nineteenth Century oi Christ's Birth. The Brooklyn Divine's Great Scheme—A - fnhine Celebration—Dr. TU- “ mage's Sermon. At the Brooklyn tabernacle, Sunday afternoon, the Rev. Dr. Talmage preached a sermon of unusual interest to a vast audience, the subject Oeing “The Nineteen Hundredth Anniversary—A Proposition Concerning It.” The text was taken from Isaiah ix, 6, “To us a child is born.” That is a tremendous hour in the history of any family when animmortal spirit is incarnated. Out of a very dark cloud there descends a very bright morning. One life spared and another given. All the bells of gladness ring over the cradle. I know not why any one should doubt that of old a star pointed down to the Savior’s birthplace, for a star of ioy points down to every honorable nativity. Protestant and Catholic and Greek churches, with all the power of music and garland and procession and doxology, put the words of my text into national and continental and hemispheric chorous. “To us a child is born.” On the 25th of December each year that is the theme in St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s and St. Mark’s and St. Isaac's and all the dedicated cathedrals, chapels, meeting houses and churches clear round the world. We shall soon reach the nineteen hundreth anniversary of that happiest event of all time. I pray God that there may be no sickness or casualty to hinder your arrival at that goal, or to hinder your taking part in the valedictory of the departing century and the salutation of'the new. But as that season will be the nineteen hundredth anniversary of a- Savior’s birth I now nominate that a great international jubilee or exposition be opened in this cluster of cities by the seacoast on Christmas Day, the 25th day of December, 1900, to be continued for at least one month into the year 1901. The three or four questions that would be asked me concerning this nomination of time and place I proceed to answer. What practical use would come of such international celebration? Answer—The biggest stride the world ever took toward the evangelication of all nations. That is a grand and wonderful convocation, the religious congress at Chicago. It will put intelligently before the world the nature of false religions which have been brutalizing the nations, trampling womanhood into the dust, enacting the horrors of infanticide, kindling funeral pyres for shrieking victims and rolling juggernauts across the mangled bodies of their worshipers. The difference of Christ’s religion f rom all others is that its way of dissemination is by simple “telling”— not argument, not skillful exegesis, polemics or the science of theological fisticuffs, but “telling.” “Tell ye the daughter of Zion behold thy king cometh!” “Go quickly and tell his disciples that he lias risen from the dead.” “Go home to thy friends and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee.” “When he is Come he will tell us all things.” A religion of “telling. u

And in what way could all nations so well be told that Christ had come as by such an international emphasizing of his nativity? All India would cry out about such an affair, for you know they have their railroads and telegraphs, “What is going on in America?” All China would cry out, “What is that great excitement in America?” All the islands of the sea would come down to the gang plank of the arriving ships and ask, “What is that they are celebrating in America?” It would be the mightiest missionary movement the world has ever seen. It would be the turning point in the world’s destiny. It would waken the slumbering nations with one touch. Question the Second —How would you have such an international jubilee conducted? Answer —All arts should be marshaled, and art in its most attractive and impressive shape. First, architecture. While all academics of music and all churches and all great halls would be needed, there should be one great auditorium erected to hold such an audience as has never been seen on any sacred occasion in America. If ' Scribonious Curio at the cost of a kingdom could built the first two amphitheaters, placing them back to back, holding great audiences for dramatic representation, and then by wonderful machinery could turn them round with all their audiences in them, making the two auditoriums one amphitheater, to witness a gladiatorial contest, and Vespasian could construct the Coliseum with its eighty columns and its triumphs in three orders of Greek architecture and a capacity to hold 87.000 people and 15,000 standing and all for purposes of cruelty and sin, can not our glorious Christianity rear in honor of our glorious Christ a structure large enough to hold 50,000 of its worshipers? The time is near at hand when in theological seminaries, where our young men ace being trained for the ministry, (h,e vqicc will be developed, and instead'of the tnumblihg minis ters, fchb. speak with <aou.bir a tone forward and hold.your hand behkid yburesr/aiidthen ahe iftld 'the general drift of the subject and 1 i Mui' Moses,or Paul.or some one els ?—inp «f that you will' hW .orih* from the theologteto aMM(nteties aIF

over me m ’.u young ministers with voice enough to command the attention of an audience of 50,000 people. That is the reason that the Lord gives us two lungs instead of one. It is the divine way of saying physiologically, “Be heard!” That is the reason that the New Testament, in beginning the account of Christ’s sermon on the mount, describes our Lord’s plain articulation and resounding utterance by saying, “He opened his mouth.” In that mighty concert hall and preaching place which I suggest for this nineteen hundredth anniversary let music crown our Lord. Bring all the orchestras, all the oratorios, all the Philharmonic and Handel and Hayden societies. Yea. let painting do its best. The foreign galleries will loan for such a jubilee their Madonnas, their AngeloS, their Rubens, their Raphaels, - their “Christ at the Jordan,” or “Christ at the Last Supper,” or “Christ Coming to Judgment,” or “Christ on the Throne of Universal Dominion,” and our own Morans will nit their pencils into the nineteen lundredth anniversary, and our lierstadts from sketching “The Domes of the Yosemite” will come to present the ’domes of the world conquered for Immanuel. Added to this I would have a floral decoration on a scale never equaled. The fields and open gardens could not furnish it, for it will be winter, and that season is appropriately chosen, for it was into the frosts and desolations of winter that Christ immigrated when he came to our world. But’while the fields will be bare, the conservatories and bath houses within 200 miles would g>adly keep the sacred coliseum radiant and aromatic during the convocations. Added to all, let there be banquets, not like the drunken bout at the Metropolitan opera house, New York, celebrating the centennial of Washington’s inauguration, where rivers of wine drowned the sobriety of so many Senators and Governors and Generals, but a banquet for the poor, the feeding of scores of thousands of people of a world in which the majority of the inhabitantshave never yet had enough to eat. Not a banquet at which a few favored men and women of social or political fortune shall sit, but such a banquet as Christ ordered when he told his servants to “go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in.” Let the Mayors of cities and the Governors of States and the President of the United States proclaim a whole week of legal holiday, at least from Christmas day to New Year’s day. Why do I propose America as the country for the convocation? Because most other lands have a state religion, and while all forms of religion may be tolerated in many lands, America is the only country on earth where evangelical denominations stand on an even footing, and all would have equal hearing in such an international exposition. Wny do I select this cluster of seacoast cities? Answer—By that time, Dec. 25, 1900, these four cities of New York' Brooklyn, Jersey City and Hoboken, by bridges and tunnels, will be practically one, and with an aggregate population of about six million. Consequently no other part of America will have such immensity of population. Why do I now make this nomination of time and place? Answer — Because such a stupendous movement can not be extemporized. It will take seven years to get ready for such an overtowering celebration, and the work ought to begin speedily in the churches, in colleges, in legislatures, in congresses, in parliaments, in all styles of national assemblages, and we have no time to lose. It would take three years to make a program worthy of such a coming together. Why do I take it upon myself to make such a nomination of time and place? Answer —Because it so happens that in the mysterious province of God, born in a farmhouse and of no royal or princely descent, the doors "of communication are open to me every week by the secular and religious printing presses and have been open to me every week for many years, with all the cities and towns and neighborhoods of Christendom, where printing presses have been establisaed, and f feel that if there is anything worthy in this proposition it will be heeded and adopted.

Aye! Aye! I bethink myself such a vast procedure as that might hasten our Lord’s coming, and that the expectation of many millions of Christians, who believe in the second advent, might realize then at that conjunction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I do not say it would be, yet who knows but that our blessed and adored Master, pleased with such a plan of worldwide observance, might say concerning this wandering and rebelious Slanet: “That world at last shows a isposition to appreciate what I have done for it, ana with one wave of my scarred hand I will bless and reclaim and save it.” That such a of our Lord’s birth, kept up for days and months, would please all the good of the earth and mightily speed on the gospel chariot and please all the heavens, saintly, cherubic, seraphic, archangelic and divine, is beyond question. Oh, get ready for the .qrarld's greatest festivity! Tune ‘your voices for the world';# greatest anthem 1 ~ Litt the arches ifor the Ix}t jJhei&civuuciug.standard ofi/tne army of years, which has insortbwpon one ’Aide 6T It “1900” ahd.iOß other haveaho tesenbed on r^tßeihostcharming name of all the *4fffvbrse—the name of JHtfS.