San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-05-24

| uduH iO Id1tH III SedIdrlQ men. on
said they mostly all had wife an,
family in every port they frequented
and weren't hardly ever known to b,
pious. She wanted Vinie to marry
minister. She sent Josiah and me off il
a buggy, and when we got to the Mill.
you was there wanderin round, lookir
! gluIn and disconsolate. So you kind Of
made up to me because you wanted t.
talk about Vinie, and you asked me tC
be your friend and her friend, and tc
tell her to keep up her courage and to
believe in your truth and constancy,
You were going next day to join your
ship for a three months voyage to the
West Indies, and you promised to write
to Vinie from the first port you touched.
You gave me so many messages fol-
Vinie | couldn't charge my memory
with them all. didn't so much as look
at Josiah all that day, and he was hoppin
mad and never spoke to me once going
home"
The captain was holding her with his
wary eye. A kind of ashen hue had
overspread his dark cheek. well" he
SAID under his breath.
"You went away" she resumed slow.
ly, quailing and dropping her eyes un.
der his look, land guess the devil must
have entered into me with seven other
spirits. forgot all them messages you
sent to Vinie. partly because | argyed
it out that it would be wrong to &C
against Mother Mayhem. | never
breathed word about that letter you
promised to write, and the wild notion
. got hold of me that mebbe you would
take up with me if Vinie was out of
your reach. guess | was half crazy,
and treated Josiah like the dirt under
my feet. But it didn't seem to make
any difference with him in the end-he
was almost too stupid to know it, Well
Vinie was looking for that letter. ]
hadn't breathed word, but she knew
you would write. could see it in her
face as she went every day to the post.
office with light step and then came
dragging home with her eyes CLASSY and
her face kind of pinched and withered.
She grew whittier and whittier every day.
most as if you could look right through
her body. But she would drag herself
to the postoffice and come back disap.
pointed, and could not help exulting.
| don't know whether | wanted her to
die or not. was wicked enough to.
But finally she broke down in the first
OF her hysterical spells, poor weakly
thing that she was, and she would make
me go to the postoffice, and the letter
came that very day. couldn't bear
she should have it. thought I'd rather
be tore limb from limb. didn't know
what was about, guess, for walked
around long time in kind of daze,
and at last found myself down by the
river at the old red bridge, and | took
the letter out of my pocket and tore it in
little strips and threw them out on the
water, and can see them now go bob.
bing up and down on the current"
Every particle of color had left the
captains face, and his eyes We're blazing
like balefires. He gave wildcat spring
and seized her two wrists in a grasp of
iron. And it was you that spread that
damnable story all over the town that
had wife and children in Saint kits,
and was trying to commit bigamy. And
when l came home her mother met me
and told me the report, and said her
daughter hated me and would never
willingly see me again"
''Let me co." shrieked Sister Martha,
as the vicelike grasp frightened on her
wrists. I'D have took you if you'd had
forty wives in all the ports, but you
treated me as if I'd been a toothless
thing. You spurned me, George Bligh,
and forced me to marry Josiah Whit
cumb. Let me go, or III screech bloody
murder. You look as if you meant to
kill me. | tell you Mother Mayhem lied.
She was a good Christian woman, but
she lied. Vinie loved you; she always
has, poor shadow, sitting at her window
year in and year out to see you pass,
without - much as ever turning your
head, watchin nights the light in your
house as if her life hung on it
The captain let go her wrists. There
was horrible look in his face. His
fingers crooked as if ready to seize the
woman's throat. She had gradually
backed into a corner, whence there was
no deliverance. AT that moment the ole
parrot awoke on his perch and called
out in sleepy, raucous voice, Don't he
fool, George" The captain stumbled
back and fell into his chair He was
terrified at the murderous impulse that
had come over him. There was long,
sharp knife on the table. He Just
glanced at it and fell into shuddering
fit, turning sick and giddy.
She was at the door of the room now,
and had stopped to say she hoped he