The Portland daily press., 1897-10-27
(Chapter 1 Continued.)

tening down the matches, tarpauling
them, and making everything snug,
when a fellow passenger whom had not
observed before stepped up and spoke.
HIS remark was a casual one, and 1T has
gone from my memory. l think it had
reference to the native seamen. and was
meant as a jest upon their lum berlng
slowness, which suggested pitlful
thoughts to him OF what their capacity
must be in a storm. But the air of the
man much more than his words aroused
and arrested my attention. 1t was that
of one whose spirits had been quickened
by the new sense of danger. He laughed,
his eyes sparkled, his tongue rolled out
his light remarks with visible relish.
| looked at the man, and saw that he
had the soul of q war horse. Tall, slight,
dark, handsome, with bushy beard, quly-
ering nostrils, mobile mouth, and eyes OF
fire. alive in every fibre, and full of I'M
conquerable energy. He appeared to be
O man of thirty to thirty five, but proved
to be no more than four-and-twenty.
learned afterwards that he was an Ameri-
can, and was travelling for love of adven-
ture.
That night we flew six hours before the
storm, but 1t overlook our ship at last
What befel us then in the darkness of
that rock-bound coast l did not know un-
til morning Can you believe itp took
my usual dose of @ drug prescribed to me
for insomnia, and lay down to sleep.
When went up on deck in the late dawn
of the following day-the time was the
spring-the wind had slaokenGi, and the
ship was rolling and swinging along in
sea that could not be heard above the
beat and thud of the engines. Only the
memory of last nights tempest lay around
in sulIen wave and sky-only there, and
in the quarters down below of the native
seamen of our ship.
The first face I encountered was that of
the American. He had been on deck all
night, and he told me what had hap
pened. Through the dark hours the storm
had been terrible, and when the first dead
light of dawn had crept across from the
east the ship had been still tossing in
great white pillows. just then a num-
Der of Lascars had been ordered aloft on
some urgent duty-I know not what-and
a sudden gust had swept one of them
from orosstree into the sea. Efforts had
been made to rescue him, the engines had
been reversed, boats put out and lifebuoy
thrown into the water, but all in vain.
The man had been swept away; he was
gone, and the ship had steamed on.
The disaster saddened me inexpressibly
I could see the Lasoar fall from the rig
ging, catch the agonising glance of the
white eyes in his black face as he was
swept past on the crest of a wave, and
watch his outstretched arms as he sank
to his death down and down and down.
It seemed to me an iniquity that while
this had happened | had slept. Perhaps
| the over sensitive condition of my nerves
WAS at fault, but indeed 1 felt that in his
way, in his degree, within the measure OF
his possibilities, that poor fellow of an
| other skin, another tongue, with whom
had exchanged no word of greeting, had
thet day given his life for my life.
| low I, - T 4
at the time it is hard to remember now,
but that the American gathered the bent
of my feelings was clear to me by the
pains he was at to show that they were
| uncalled for, and unnatural and false.
What was lifeP I had set too great a
store by it. The modern reverence for
life was eating..away the finest instincts OF
mans nature. Life was not the most
| sacred of our possessions. Duty, justice,
truth, these were higher things.
| So he talked that day and the next, I'M
| til from thoughts of the loss of the Lascar
we had drifted far into wider and more
perilous speculations. The American
hsld to his canon. War was often better
| than peace, and open massacre than cor
rupt tranquility. We wanted some Of
the robust spirit of the Middle Ages in
these our piping days. The talk turned
on the persecution of the Jews in Russia.
The American defended it; stern people
was purging itself of an alien element
which, like an interminate tapeworm,
had been preying on its vitals. The
remedy was drastic but necessary; life
was lost but also life was saved.
Then coming to closer quarters we
talked Of murder. The American held to
| the doctrine of Sterne. 1t was hard
case that the laws of the modern world
| should not have made any manner OF
difference between numbering an honest
man and only executing a scoundfel.
these Things should always be rated ad
valorem. AS for blood split in self-de-
fence it was folly to talk of it as crime.
Even the laws of my own effeminate
Land justified the man who struck down
tho arm that was raised to kill him; and
the mind that reckoned such an act as an
offence was morbid and diseased.
Such opinions were repugnant to me
and tried to resist them. There was o
sanctity about human life which no man
should dare to outrage. God gave IL, and
the government of the world. let it be for
better or for. worse, it was in God 8 hands
and God required the help Of no man.
My resistance was useless. The Ameri-
can held to his doctrine; it was good to
take life in good cause; and if it was
good for the nation it was good for the
individual man. The end was all.
force l could command, and l knew not
how strongly my adversary had assailed
me. Now, know too well that his opin-
ions sank deep into my soul. Only too
we'll know it now-now that
We arrived at Gibraltar the following
morning, and going up on deck in the
empty void OF air that follows on the sud
den stopping of a ships engines, found
the American, amid a group of swarthy
Gibraltarians, bargaining for boat to
take him to the mole. 1t turned out that
he was going to Morocco also, and SO we
hired the boat together.
The morning was clear and cold; the
great broad rock looked whittier and
starker and more like gigantic oyster.
shell than ever against the blue of the
sky. There would be no steamer for
Tangier until the following day, and we
We're to put up.at the Spanish hotel called
the Cslpe.
Immediately on landing I made my
way to the post Office to despatch a tele-
gram home announcing my arrival, and
there I found two letters, which having
come overland arrived in advance of me.
One of them was from Wenman, telling
me that he had called at Wimpole street
the ynnrnfDC after nv deDartura aDd