Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-08-07
CHAPTER XVIII.

broke in upon their conversation.
What have you to say, captain?'
g await your orders I can get safe
anchorage here. Is your voyage at an end %
g For the present. Yonder lies the Sill
yer Isle-a fair land"
1t seems so but have seen as fair, at
distance, that turned out foul upon a
nearer acquaintance.
This will not. Let go your anchor j;
tomorrow morning shall want boat to
convey one of my servants ashore with a
letter to the islanders. There is nothing
to fear from them the people are not
cannibals."
Maybe not; but yeu tell me they have
no king"
The greater fortune, said Harold,
* for the king they have not Having no
king they cannot hunt one to DEATH"
''Our king lives and is safe.
g In Punishment, said Mauvain, gloom
lily, as we are. Better to have died,
sword ia hand. Captain, it is likely you
will have to put up with us day or two
longer"
''The later we part company the better
shall be pleased.
Mauvain, with nod, dismissed the cap.
tain, and turned to Harold
81 am almost at loss what to say to
the islanders, and to whom to address my
missive."
The letter you gave me on my visit to
the isle was addressed to one Sebastian. A
stately man, whose white hair flowed over
his shoulders. By this time, doubtless,
gathered to his forefathers. can suggest
a younger man."
s'Name him."
''Ranf, the hunehback.'
Mauvain frowned. ''There lies an OBJ
stacle."
Harold laughed blithely. "My very
thought, Mauvain. If my memory does
not deceive me, you begged the islanders
to accept the hunchback as a trust in
kindly remembrance of yourself. Doubt
less they appreciated your generosity in
having sent them such Caiban.
"And something worse, said Mauvain,
added to his hunchahip,"
"There could be nothing worse in human
form"
"There is no saying. He had daughter,
remember, of whom you gave me fright
full description. If she has fulfilled the
promise of her youth, we may find not
only Caliban,. but a younger Sycorax on
the Silver Isle. Would you believe,
Harold, that this man once told me a
woman loved him? 1t is inconceivable,
and yet l must do the hunchback the
justice to say that 1 believe him not to be
guilty of falsehood. You are silent, Harold.
Are you thinking OF the hunchback's
daughter, and dreading her spells? For
by this time, if she live lit may mercifully
have happened that they are both removed
from mortal spheres) she is mistress of all
that is foul in nature. / can see her, al
ready with bent back, searching the woods
for poisonous herbs for purposes of witch
craft. The account you gave me of your
voyage hither in such company is very
vivid in my mind all his hideousness re-
produced in her, very monkey in mis-
chief, body as twisted, hair unkempt, limbs
crooked"
"Hold!' cried Harold. "Be little
nerciful. There are fair sins as ill-begot-
ten"
'sMake me-" continued Mauvain, APP
pearing to take pleasure in the subject, a
group in stone of this interesting couple.
DO you remember my suggesting it to you
Aud look forward with prophets eye,
said, and cut the figures as they will be in
twenty years. You performed the task
well you have the soul of an artist, Har-
old, and when you are interested in a
work, excellence is the result. You
modelled Rant to the life, an old man
whose likeness lives only in the being we
know, and projecting your mind into the
future, you created in stone the figure of q
woman so startling in its weird ugliness
that it would have made the fortune of a
sculptor had critic dealt with it. Rant
and this hideous Evangeline side by side,
STOPPING over pool of water. There is no
mistaking that the repulsive pair are father
and daughter 1t was trick, Harold, but
most truly original, that you should have
hewn out of the marble over which these
creatures are bending, great hollow, with
a Roor of glass, so that, being filed with
clear water, the reflection of the two faces
is plainly seen. The marvelously original
Evangeline shall be set up in the grounds
of my house ON the Silver Isle
Impossiblel" interrupted Harold.
"The iconoclasts of our unhappy country
have by this time criticised it with their
hammers"
sit happens otherwise, fortunately.
Foreseeing what was coming, and thinking
it not unlikely that we should have to fly
the country, 1 had certain household
treasures packed up and conveyed to the
seaside They are in the hold of this yes.
sci at the present moment, and your Rant
and Evangeline among them. I shall have
an opportunity, if the interesting couple
are alive, of comparing living flesh with
dumb stone, and of proving what kind Of
prophet You were when you designed the
group"
at is scarcely worth while, said Har-
old, with a slight tremor in his voice, to
inflict humiliation upon me-"
Humiliation, Harold Explain.
1t is not pleasant TO look, in our ripe
age, upon the mistakes of our earlier years.
My hfe-in other respects, as well as in
that of an artist-has been failure / am
painfully conscious of this lamentable con-
clusion. The proup Won sneak of NAV be