The Morning herald., 1878-02-16

Says-througn oeadly peru, uon, trolule,
otter want, but always with undertaking
iaith, had come at last. ..
He and her murderer stood face to
face!
His hand went at once to the knife in
his bosom, but touched the priests letter
and fell again.
He must be cautious. He must not
create any barrier to his seeing the sick
little one among the Majorcan Hills.
His work could be done secretly and
surely on some one of the days of the voy-
age yet to come.
Several of these days passed without
bringing the opportunity.
AT last it tarrived.
One night the traveller and the captain
sat late together over their wine. They were
deep drinkers both, and the cabin-lamp saw
many bumper emptied before the carous,
ers separated.
The man at the wheel, looking down
through the open cabin hatch, saw them
rise at last, and heard the Englishman
speak, pressing his temples between his
| hands:
II have headache" he said; IT will 90
On deck for breath of what little fresh air
here is"
1t was hot; breathless, heavy sum-
mer night, oppressive with the intense
warmth of a coming storm; but the helms
man, as he felt for knife in his bosom.
all the furnaces of hell could not have
brought such fierce gust of flaming joy
as turned his blood to fire and flashed
red mist in his eager eyes when a figure
stepped upon the deck.
At last ! at last
"a close, hot night, my man." said the
Englishman, in his easy, careless way, as
he lounged slowly to the taffrail. ''The
sort of night to remind one of the tortures
the damned undergo below"
The brig gave lrrch to leeward as the
sea twisted her unnamed rudder. A
bright blade flashed redly in the light of
the binnacle; one figure only stood where
two had been, looking with blazing eyes
into the black water where circle of sharp
ripples, fringed with phosphorecent fire,
yidened in lines of pallid flame and
vanished.
There had been single deep groan, and
figure had plunged past the cabin win
dow; figure whose heart was cleft by
keen blade whose blade was worn so thin
that it had been snapped off, leaving
only the handle in the executioner's
hand.
At the same instant a star, the single |
one visible in the murky heavens, had |
fallen in swift sweep of Light.
Next day it was known that the traveller
SO lately snatched from death upon it, had |
fallen overheard in drunken fit and been |
swallowed by the sea,
"And the man? The child ?" I asked, |
when my story-teller drew long BREATH |
wiped the perspiration from his drawn
brow with the back of his hand, and tossed
his finished cigar into the water. ~'Are
they alive ?"
'Faithless padre mio," said voice be-
hind me, and slender blown-skinned,
free-limbed girl of thirteen, bare-headed,
and clad in the picturesque
dress of the country, stepped
past me and smote my friend lightly on
the face with melon leaf 'Is this your
promise Pardon me, senior, but you
know not how false he is. He pledged me
to take me to the theatre in the
plaza to-day, and here find him, as always,
staring his eyes out at that wretched old
ship yonder. What can there be about it
that he feast his eyes upon it SO, like
poor woman praying at her shrine p
1T is a shrine monument" said the
his eyes cleaning for mo-
ment with savage joy, which softened to
such look of love as one rarely sees when
he brushed the girls heavy hair back from
her forehead and kissed her. i
''Senor, you ask whether the man and
The child of my story are alive. They
sre."
And hand in hand with the girl he went
Up the blazing sunlit quay, and vanished in
ihe busy street,