The free press., 1893-05-25

'iA"e iC "oS toii duu Well IOrucu. IL
was more owing to the effect tha man
was producing on tow-haired German
girl who was tenderly bandaging his
right wrist. She blushcd furiously when
he spoke and bent her head to hide her
confusion. Relf reflected that the man
must be strikingly handsome or was
saying unusually sweet nothings, and
waited curiously until the operation
should be completed, hoping to see his
face. But when the girl gave final pat
to her skilful bandage, the sailor made
her funny little bow and went inside
without turning round.
Later in the day, when Relf was talk
ing with the captain of the Lizzie John
ston, and at the same time idly watching
the picture of squalor the steerage af-
forded, he again saw the young man of
the bandaged wrist, stretched out in the
sunshine, apparently asleep, with his face
concealed by his arm. He was on the
point of asking the captain about him
when steward appeared on the prom
enade deck beating a Chinese gong for
dinner.
At dinner, at the supreme moment
when tongues wag livelisst, when the Or
chestra plays loudest, when every one is
wittiest and no one else is listening-the
steward laid rather soiled envelope,
addressed in an Uniformed hand, beside
Relf's plate. He opened the dubious
looking cover wonderingly, and glanced
down the half sheet it contained, upon
which among other things was a smirch
of blood, until his eyes rested upon the
signature, eRichard Burns" He stared
at it so long and stupidity that the i'm
patient steward joggled his elbow, and
Relf, who in the entire twenty years of
his existence had never been so deeply
moved, helped himself plentifully to
mashed potatoes.
"Mr. Relf," the note ran, "when I
saw you talking to the captain to-day l
hid my face, but you will come again
and see me anyhow, and l want to have
talk with you before you give me
away. Can I see you tonight when the
people have gone ina Very respectfully,
Richard Burns"
Relf shuddered at this note with its blot
of blood almost as he had shuddered two
years before when in the pink and gray
light of early dawn he stumbled over the
dead body OF servant on the deck of
his uncle's yacht. The shock had been
horrid one. The gruesomeness of un-
expectedly finding some one for whom
he had liking, dead, with his head
battered in, was more than Relf felt he
could ever quite recover from; and row
chance and fog had placed the muir
derer in his hands when the police and
vast expenditure of money had failed
to do so. Relf had often pictured to
himself nolseless struggle in which
Manderson had succumbed to the 1.-the
young stoker the stealthy tip-toe across
the deck, the soft splash, and the long,
cold swim toward the lights of the dis
tant watering place. He saw it now so
clearly, so intensely, that 1t made his
head ache, and quite forgetting that the
Bishop was telling him an anecdote, he
left the table suddenly and went on
deck, where, except for eight or ten
ladies dining on lemonade, he found him
self alone.
1t was not because Relf was in doubt
as to his duty that he felt the need OF
some one wiser than himself in whom he
could confde. What he had to do he
realized quite clearly; it had flashed
through his mind the moment he saw the
signature of the note. But how to go
about it without becoming undeslraoly
conspicuous was another matter. lie had
but vague ideas as to how criminal
was brought to justice on land. On the
high seas it was probably totally dlher-
ent proceeding, and among all the people
ON board with whom he had discussed
the run, and the pools, and Rudyard
Kipling, and the collision, there was
no one whose advice he cared to ask.
The Bishop was so utterly unpractical
that Relf doubted whether he even be-
lieved in arresting people at all; ana as
for the Rabbi-Re(f smiled.
OF course he would not see Burns ne
reflected. To arrange rendezvous Win
murderer, in mid-ocean, after every
one had gone in, was not exactly
subtle thing for young man WIN no
particular taste for athletics to do. linen,
after thinking it over for some time, ne
decided that 1t might be-well, rather
unfair to pay no attention to the mans
request, and decided to meet him.
It was clear and cold when hell
stepped out of the smoking room ia'e
that night. Elk ,ept for fair compatrio'
and college man the deck was deserted.
He took up his position in front OF the
music room, and stood looking INTO 1ne
black depths of the steerage unt'' .ne,o
was sudden CLEAN of light there,
against which a mans figure stoou ous
for an instant, and he felt that Richard
Burns was waiting for him.
"Is that you, BurnsG" ne called solt'
ly, and then, without waiting for an au,
swer, added: "Come up here please:
He neither had anything to say nor u.u
he know what the man wished to say "
him, so he leaned against the ran anu
waited for the other to begin. During
the silence that followed, his dislike oi