The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-05-16
SYLvEsrER's WIFE.
CHAPTER l.

taken in the proceedings suddenly de- veloped into something nearly akin to excitement. The jury had just returned a verdict of culpable homicide against a dozen out of some fifty Shangaans who stood huddled together, helpless and frightened, in the dock, charged with participation in fatal tribal affray at the Lone Star diamond mining company's compound; the judge had duly sentenced the gaping unfortunates, and the jailers were endeavoring to sort them out from among their unconvicted but prooably DO less guilty comrades, when the crown prosecutor, fresh-colored young Eng Rshman, with no small idea of his own importance, turned in his seat at the bayristers' table, and whispered to the official who sat behind him to put for ward Dirk Sylvester. The official rose and repeated the name aloud hum of expectancy ran through the little crowd of spectators, and passed on to the ioungers outside, who eagerly crowded into the corrugated iron temple oi justice gentlemen of the long robe and members of the press hurried over from The Yellow BAr," just opposite and the stal wart Rulu, attired in canvas marked with he broad black arrow, paused in his monotonous jerking of the punkah cord ID order to catch a glimpse Of Baas ;" Sylvester, as he stepped into the dock.
 The prisoner was tall, handsome colonial, with dark gleaming eyes, black beard, and skin the paleness of which had been ripened into swarthiness by the fierce African sun. He was erect and fearless he threw glance of defiance at his enemies he nodded with smile to his friends, and then as the door of pri- vate entrance to the body of the court opened, and a figure draped in purest white, with bright golden hair ripping in rich profusion over the shapely shoulders, glided in softly and quietly Nike sunbeam from the free world out side, he leaned over the rail which inter. posed between him and liberty, and hoarsely whispered her name-the dear est name on earth to him.
 It was Sylvester's wife. She responded quickly with look more eloquent than words 1; and then the prisoner drew him. self up to his full height, folded his arms. listended intently as the clerk of the court, an old friend with whom he had spent many roystering evening in his bachelor days, droned through the indict- ment, and in clear voice replied to the charge of wilful murder, "Not guilty"
 The crown prosecutor, in slow and measured tones, began to sketch the his tory of the crime; the jidge lounged back in his chair and leisurely sought for the clean pages in his record book; the counsel for the defense pushed back his wig from his perspiring brow, and hunted out a reference in an almost forgotten work on the Roman-Dutch law; the spectators hushed their murmuring; .he punkah swayed regularly to and fro over head and Sylvester's wife, sitting there in the well of the st fling court, with her sweet blue eyes riveted on the prisoner, and her luxuriant locks rising and falling with the artificial breeze, looked to me even more beautiful than two years ago, when she nightly ravished the hearts of susceptible diggers in the make-shift theatre in the Dutoitspan road.
 In those memorable bygone days she was Mademoiselle Marie La Cour, and the star of travelling theatrical com pany, which, like most other "combina- hons of talent" visiting the Diamond Fields, never, as whole, got any further. The proprietor made so much money in short season that he left to assume the lesseeship of a big Australian house, and Maries father took over the management ot the sheep thus bereft of their shepherd How divinely she danced and sang how she brought the tears into the eyes of great rough fellows, or made them shake the ratters with their sonorous laughter {; how she Auttered the hearts of the bank magnates and the lew diamond mer- chants, and how she caused the "treas- ury" to overflow with fatness-are not all these things written in the tablets of the memory of every dweller on the fields i? In the zenith of her fame she married Dirk Sylvester, and if ever a man de- served his bride he did, for his passion wore him almost to shadow, and his dark eyes eleamed dangerously if a rival presumed ns much as to speak to her :; and before Dirk came upon the scene there were rivals in plenty; but though Marie slipped the champagne they profered, and even accepted their dia monds, she laughed openly at all. of them. Dick was proprietor of one of the @A~@ASSs SAoAihS oe tuC &NCW NuSu, anu the moment he and Marie met the host of more or less hopeful suitors saw their chances were over. She seemed to have fallen in love with him quite as much as he with her, and would have married him long before she did but that her father besought her to continue on the stage little longer for his benefit. At last the old gentleman drank himself into the Carnarvon hospital, and only came out thence to occupy one of the graves which are always yawning, ready dug in the Kimberley cemetery, for victims to fever and alcohol; and then Marie La Cour became to us and all our world "Sylvester's wife"
 They took little villa at the extremity of Dutoitspan road a neat veranda.s sur rounded residence, screened from the dust and heat by tall blue gums, and half covered with creepers and tropical flowers. Alter that we saw little of the once SO well-known Marie La Cour. Oc- cAsiona1iv at l0nv inteyvaIs fhAx ,vc,,Id