The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-01-17

less, ludicTOus, but never awful, brought
hysteric laugh TO her lbs. But when a
livid blue Light. lit in the Swinging top,
showed a number of blacA objects clluging
TO bulwarks and rigging. and the sea with
lanEuid heavy cruelty, pushing rather than
beating them a ay, one by one, she knew
that death was there.
The neighbors, her father with the others,
had beeE running hopelessy to and fro. or
covering in groups against the copSe, when
suddenly they uttered cry-their first-of
joyful welcome. And with that shout, the
man she most despised and hated, Sol Cat
lin, mounted on ''calico" mnsta 2, as ont
rageous and bizarre as himself, Gashs
among them.
In another moment. what had been fear,
bewilderment and hesitation, was changer
to courage, confidence and action. TIE
men pressed eagerly around him, aud as
eagerly disappeared under his quic2 CON-
mand. Galloping at his heels was the team
with the whaleboat, brought from the river
miles away. He was here, there, ard every
where; catching the line rown by the
rocket from the ship. marshang the men
to haul it in, answering the hail from those
on board above the tempest; pervadiug
everything and every body with tie fury OF
the storm; load, i'm ~erious, domineering
self-asserting, all-suffic ent, ani lccessfull
And when the boat was laulch the la
mighty impulse came from his shoulder. He
rode at the helm into the first hanging wall
| of foam, erect and triumphant D. zzled
bewildered, crying and laughing, she hated
him more than ever.
The boat made three trips, bringing OF,
| with the aid of the hawser, all but ths
| sailors she had seen perish before her own
eyes. The passengers-they were few-the
captain and officers found refuge in her
fathers house. and were loud in their
praises of Sol Catlin. But in that grateful
chorus single gloomy voice arose the voice
of wealthy and troubled passeng T. II
will give" ne said, ''$5. 600 to the man who
brings me box of securities | left in my
| stateroom." Every eye turned instinctively
I to Sol; he ans wered only those of Jenny's.
''Say $40, 900, and IL the dod-blasted hulk
holds together two hours longer III do it,
- mel You hear mel Ny names Sol
Catlin, and when say thing, by -! l
do it," Jenny's disgust here reached its
| climax. The hero of q night Of undoubt ted
energy and courage had blotted it out in
| single moment of native vanity ard vulgar
| avariee.
He was gone; not ony two hours, but
daylight had come. ana they were eagerly
seeking him, when he returned among
them, dripping and-empty handed. He
| had reached the ship. be SAID, with another:
| found the box, and trusted himself alone
with it to the sea. But in the surf he had
| to abandon it to save himself. 1t had, per-
| haps, drifted ashore, and might be found !;
for himself he abandoned his claim to the
reward. Had he looked abashed or morti-
fed, Jenny felt that she might have re-
| Tented, but the braggart was as all satisfied,
as confident and boastful as ever. Never
theless, as his eye seemed to seek her, she
was constrained, in mere politeness, to add
her own to her fathers coincidence II
| suppose" she hesiteted, in passing him,
that this is a mere nothing to you after all
you did last night that was really great and
| unselfsh."
Were you never disappointed, Mss" he
said, with exasperatiug abruptness.
A quick Consciousness of her own thank
less labor on the galleon, and a terrible
idea that he might have suspicious of, and
perhaps the least suggestion that she might
have been disappointed in him, brought
faint color to her cheek. But she replied
with dignity:
she added with new-found pertness, ''you
don't look it."
''Nor do you, Miss" was his idlotic am
swer.
A few hours later, alarmed at what she
had heard Of the inroads of the sea, which
had risen higher than ever known to the
oldest settler, and perhaps mindful of yes
terday's footprints, she sought her old Sc
cluded haunt The wreck was still there,
but the sea had reached it. The excavati
between its gaunt ribs was filed with drift
and the sea-weed carried there by the
surges and entrapped by its meshes And
there, too. caught as in a net, lay the
wooden box of securities Sol Catlin had
abandoned to the sea.
This is the story as it was told to me.
The singularity OF coincidence has chal-
lenged some speculation. Jenny insisted at
the time upon sharing the full reward with
Cetlin, but local critics have pointed out
that from subsequent events this proved
nothing. For she had married himl