The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-01-24
THE MORNING NEWS: SUNDAY, p, PAGES

[ grown 70 be a madness. He was poss assed
/ byi Every Granny % his nature seemed
dllsd with the leprOus distllment Of It's
poison. II made him a lOatning u himsel I,
his days a horror and his nights burden,
and yet there VAS nothing N the riches Of
the whole wide world which could have
tempted him 10 part from H.
The long journey was over and he left his
floating home. as he had left his native land
with 10 fareWells u say, and no voice 70
wish HIM gO1speed.
There were not many men who at that
time had landed In Australia with better
provision In E1ere money than John Hether-
ldge. He had q rare clear head for business,
and in a very little while began to look in
diligently on dozen or two of the count
less schemes which were industriOusly kept
a boiling in Melbourne early in the fifties.
Here again for while the change in his
life, the new Interests and the new environ
ment, seemed to build a wall between his
miserles ana himself He made money hand
over hand, and the excitement of business
enterprise would sometimes Danish George
Redwood from his mind. but before ne
knew il the barrier wall had cfumbled into
nothing, the new mode Of life had bee ONE
ha5itual, aud he and his Teasonless rage
lived together as Of old.
Two years went by. in which there is
nothing 70 be chronicled but ups and downs
Of business affairs, resulting in the main in
Hetheridge's aggrandizsment- There were
Gibbs aud flows. OF course. petty currents,
which veered hither aud thither, but the
main tide bore him on till he saw before
him the prospect Of such wealth as he mad
never hitherto dared to dream Of
And hereabouts thing happened which
must needs be told.
A little after Christmas tins he was far
uFHfaN
pursuit Of one Of the many business enter.
prises in which he was engaged. The sun
hamed down with an almost intolerable
heat and he drove through forest in which
reigned a silence like that of the tomb. The
baked earth opened its gaping, thirsty lips
In millions OF places. The shadeless gums
arefused shelter TO man or beast, aud the
smaller shrubs and such forest heritage as
the springtime OF the year could have
shown were parched almost to finder. The
buggy threaded in and out among the gray
boles OF the trees, and an ignorant observer
might have supposed the man lost and driv-
ing at random. There was no track or
semblance Of a track, but he was following
trustworthy directions, and an occasional
reference TO pocket compass kept his mind
at ease. At hign noon when he and his
horse were alike weary, he came upon Il
clearing. where the Jagged and blackened
stumps Of countless trees gave an indiscrib-
ably gap-toothed and dreary look to the
expanse before HIM. In the middle of the
clearing was hut of but a single story,
and this he knew to be his hating place.
When he alghted and called he elected
no response, but as he busted himself in re-
leasing his horse from the buggy he shouted
anew, and this time was answered by the
weeping voice OF a child.
He entered at the door of the low proved
shanty, and his foot tripping upon some
thing in the sudden dusk, he stumbled for
ward, and would have fallen but that his
outstretched hands rested upon a rough
table. The child's cry rang through the
room. The shutters OF the rough, unglazed
windows were closed. He thrust one of
them open with the butt of his driving
whip, and as the light poured in he drew
himself back from the table which had ar
rested his fall and looked at the object
which had tripped him. As his eye fell
upon it he recoiled pace with suddenly
outstretched hands, and so stood staring
down in a fixed horror until his arms fell
gradually to his side. There lay at his feet
the dead body of man, the colorless face
writhed as if with last spasm of pain.
The hands we're thrown wide abroad, aud
open palm upwards. and the sole of one foot
tested fiat upon the earthen floor, the knee
cooking upward with grotesque impertinen5
suggestion Of life and effort.
The child's voice shrilled from darkened
corner, but Hetheridge paid no heed to it
for the moment. When he had overcome
the frat shock of terrified surprise he knelv
down by the PROSTATE figure and gingerly
lifted one OF the outstretchad arms by a rag
Of the soiled flannel shirt. The latter gave
way and the arm dropped heavily. Forcing
himself against his own repuguance.
Hetheridge examined the body. The man
TO all appearance was well nourished, and
looked as If only an hour or two ago he
must have seemed an unusually sta wart
fellow. There was no sign of violence to be
seen about him as he lay, but the searcher's
hand came away from the dead mans side
with blood upon it. 1t had never before
fallen to his lot to see man who had died
by violence, and he felt a horror Of the poor
dead body. which he found it hard to con-
quer. But his curiosity, mixed perhaps
with some humane feeling, forced him on,
and with some ado he turned the corpse on
its face.
The cause OF death was instantly appar-
ent. The broken shaft of q black fellows
spear came to sight, and the head Of it,
driven more deeply by the fail, still pro-
jected from between toe shoulders. Heth-
eridge laid the body in decent posture, and
covered the faced with O coarse jack towel
which hung behind the door.
All this time the UNDECIDED child had cried
IusGly, Out ne now turned TO 10. IL lay
upon q rough cot with almost naked limbs,
and by its side was a rough stone feeding
bottle, with a wooden plug in its center,
packed in with q rag of newspaper, and at
one end amumbled teat of wash leather
still soft and wet from its last contact with
the infants lips. Hetheridge knew little
enough Of babies and their ways, but the
first thing TO be done was obvious He
thrust the teat gently between the infants
lips, and the crying ceased instantly, the
chubby hands grasped at the bottle, and the
moist and rosy lips sucked away at it with
intense and immediate satisfaction.
And now what was to be done! The next
hating place was more than a score Of miles
away. 1t was imperative to reach 1t before
nightfall, and inadvisable to travel until
the heat of the day would be somewhat as
suaged. With many a backward or sidelong
glance at the body on the floor, broad day
light as it was, Hethsridge foraged about
the hut with little result in the way of dis
coyery. He found tea and a quantity of
coarse brown sugar, and remembering to
have seen outside blackened aud battered
billy suspended from crooked branch
stuck in the cleft of a charred tree he re-
turned into the open air to make prepara-
tons for a meal. A well~worn track led
him to O creek and there he washed and re-
filled the vessel, and returning lit fire be-