The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1869-03-05
0neGmtelliQ|et
FOULPIAY.
By cHAs. READE AND DION BoUcrcAULE
a N Ov H l..


loving heart. 1t was a letter.
He knew it in a moment. 1t had al
ready caused him many pang but
now il almost drove him mad. Arthur
| Wardlaw's letter.
He recoiled from it, aud let it lie. He
| went out of the cave, and cursed his
hard fate. But he came back. 1t was
one of those horrible things a man alb
hors, vet cannot keep away from. He
took It up and dashed 1t down with rage
many times but it all ended in his
lighting the lamp at night, and tortur-
ing himself with every word of that
| loving letter.
And she was going home to the writer
OF that letter, and he was left a prisoner
on the island. He cursed his generous
folly, and writhed in agony at the
thought. lie ragged with jealousy, so
that his very grief was blunted for a
time.
He felt as if he must go mad.
| Then he prayed,-prayed Gervently.
| And at last, worn out with such fierce
and contending emotions, he fell into a
deep sleep, and did not wake till the
sun was high in heaven.
| He woke; and the first thing he saw
was the fatal letter lying at his feet in
u narrow stream of sunshine that came
He eyed it with horror. This then
was to haunt him by night and day.
He eyed it and eyed it. Then turned
his face from ii; but could not help eye
ing il again.
Aud at last certain words in this let
ter seemed to him to bear an affinity to
another piece of writing that had also
caused him great woe. Memory by its
subtle links connected these two enc
mics OF his together. He eyed 1t still
more keenly, and that impression be.
came strengthened. He took the letter
and looked at it close, and held it at
arms length, and devoured it, and the
effect of this keen examination was
very remarkable. 1t seemed to restore
| the man to energy and to something
like hope. His eyes sparkled, and
triumphant 'AhT burst from his be-
som.
He became once more man of ac-
ton. lie rOse, and bathed, and walked
rapidly to and fro upon the sands,
working himself up to a daring enters
prise. He took his saw into the jungle,
and cut down e tree of kind common
enough there. 1t was wonderfully
soft, and almost as light rs cork. The
wood of this was literally useless for
any other purpose than that to which
Penf fold destined it. He cut a great
many blocks of this wood, and drilled
holes in them, and, having hundreds of
yards of good line, attached these quasi
corks to the gunwAle, so as to make
| life. boat. This took him several days,
during which time an event occurred
that encouraged him.
One morning he saw about million
birds very busy in the bay, and it
proved to he spermaceti whale come
ashore.
| He went out to her directly with all
his tools, for he wanted oil for his en-
terprise, and the seal oil was exhausted.
When he got near the whale In his
boat, he observed Il harpOOn sticking in
| the animals back. He cut steps with
| his axe in the slippery carcass, and. got
uD to it as well as he could, extracted
| it by cutting and pulling, and threw it
| down into his boat, but not till he had
taken the preCRutinn to stick great
niece of blubber on the barbed point.
He then sawed and hacked under diff
culties, being bu3eted and bothered
with thousands of birds, so eager for
slices, that it WAS as much AS he could
do to avoid the making of miuced fowl;
but, true to his gentle creed, he contriv-
ed to get three hundred weight OF blub-
Der without downright killing any of
these greedy competitors, though he
| buffeted some of them, and nearly
knocked out what little sense they had.
He came ashore with his blubber and
| harpoon, and, when he came to ex-
anime the latter, he found that the
name of the owner was cut deeply in
the steel,-JOsh. Fullalove, J. Fernan-
Ls
| on Robert Penfold's mind. 1t seemed
| to bring the island of Juan Fernandez,
and humanity in general, nearer 10
him.
He boiled down the blubber, and put
a barrel of oil on board his life boat. He
had a ships lantern TO burn II III. He
also pitched her bottom as far as he
could get at it, and provisional her for
i a long voyage; taking care 10 lash the
water cask and beef cask to the fore
thwart and foremost, i'll case OF rough
| weather. 49,
When he had done all this, it occur
red TO him suddenly, that, should he
ever escape the winds and waves, and
| get to England, he would then have to
encounter difficulties and dangers of
another class, and lose the battle by his
| poverty,
Il will throw no chance away
He reflected, with great bitterness,
| on the misery that want of money had
already brought on him; and heVowed
| to reach England rich, or go to the bot
tom OF the Pacific. -....
man to make on an unknown island:
but Robert Penfold had a powerful I'M
| Outstanding, sharpened by adversely,
and his judg ement told him truly that
he possessed wealth on this island both
directly and indirectly. In the first
|
and the knowledge OF this island was
thing he could sell to the American
| merchants on the coast OF Chill; and
with this view, he put on board his boat
specimens of the cassia and other woods,
fruit, spices, pitch, guano, pink and red
coral, pearl oysters, shells, cochineal,
| quartz, cotton, &C., &c.
| Then he took his chisel, and struck
all the larger pearls off the shells that
lined Helen's cave. The walls and
roof yielded nine enormous pearls.
thirty large ones, and a great many Of
the usual size.
He made pocket inside his waist
coat to hold the pearls safe.
Teen he took his spade and dug into
the Spanish ship for treasure. But this
was terrible work. The sand returned
upon the spade and trebled his labor.
The condition to which time and long
submersion had reduced this ship and
cargo were truly remarkable. Moth
ing to be seen of the deck but a
thin brown streak that mingled with
| the sand in patches; of the timbers
nothing but the uprjghts, and of thos
the larger half eaten and dissolved.
He dug five days, and found nothing
solid.
On the sixth, being now at the bot
tom of the ship, he struck his spade
againt something hard and heavy.
| On inspection it looked like ore, but
of what metal he could not tell; 1t was
as black as coal. He threw this on
one side, and found nothing more; but
the next day he turned up smaller
cleaned with lime.juice. 1t came out
oil