The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1877-03-08
CHAPTER X.
BEN HAS HIS REVENGE.

Out in the cold December evening
Helen and Ben walked through the
streets, crowded with the late buyers
in the Christmas markets. The old
man was silent, thinking over his
baffied hopes of justice. 1t was bit
ter pill for him to swallow. After all
these years, in which every day
brought before him in stronger colors
the blackness of the treachery which
lost the Lucy Derrick and destroyed
SO many lives, and after finding his
enemy, the last and worst of the
whole mutinous crew, to learn first
that Christian forgiveness might have
to include even that desperate villain,
and then that more potent hand of
ustice than even British law was TAX
ing him away from his grasp-all this
was too much for the good old man.
Helen OWNED his thoughts, and tried
to lead them back to other matters.
"You will be rejoiced, Ben, to see
Mr.. Warneford's good name restored,
will you not?"
"Ay, ay, Miss Helen. Not that it
makes any difference to him, nor to
you, nor to me neither, in so far as
my respects is concerned. Boston
Tom is at the bottom of that villainy
too.
''He was. Ben, and il he is on his
death-bed, we must forgive that as
well as the greater crime.'
Ben made no answer.
They came into Whitechapel High
Street, all ablaze with gas-light, and
presently arrived at the house.
The door was wide open, but there
was no one in the front-rsom, where
Rupert had been wont of late to en-
tertain rolstering Jack and his friends
with an exhibition of his art. No one
in the passage, no one on the stairs
all was dark and silent.
They waited. What to do next.
and where to go?
Presently they heard voice up
stairs, and footsteps.
Ben listened. That's Master Ru-
pert" he said. Follow close to me,
Miss Helen"
The room was lit by single gas jet,
fiaring high, like one of those which
decorated the butchers stalls outside.
1t was an old-fashioned wainscoated
room, bat the paint was thick with
dirt, and the ceiling, which had once,
perhaps, been whitewashed, was
blackened with smoke and grimed
with age. 1t was furnished with q
low, rickety wooden bed and with q
couple of chairs-nothing else, not
| even wash stand or table. And on
the bed, propped up by pillows, sat
Boston Tom. He was dying; his
cheeks were white and sunken; the
old wound at the side of his lip show
ed red and ghastly against the deathly
pallor of his cheeks; his hair lay over
his low, receding forehead; round his
shoulders was thrown an old pea-jack-
ct, and in his trembling fingers he
held a tumbler half full of rum.
He looked round and saw his visit
ors, with curious smile.
ben Croil, is it?" he gasped; "old
Ben Croil, the bo's'n. Thought you
was dead, mate; thought you was cast
away in the captains gig-you and
the young lady and George Warne-
ford. Glad you're not; that makes
three less-every little counts. Three
less. Bully for you, Boston Toni"
| He raised the tumbler to his lips,
and would have let it fall in his weak
ness, but for Rupert, his sole compan-
ion, who held it for him while he
drank, with look half of apology and
half of recognition at Helen and Ben.
TT is all we can do for him now"
he explained.
"Does he know it?" whispered Hell
en-. "Does he know his condition."
The man, who had closed his eyes
for moment, opened them and be-