The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-01-09

severely alone by man throughout all
the centuries.
Still human breath was hourly drawn
in the immediate neighborhood, and
| when the airs blew toward the isle, or
the breezes lay stagnant, sharp human
| cries fell dimly on Kettles ear to tell
him that men near at hand were alive
and awake and plying their appointed
occupations. The larger wooded isle,
which lay in long rifle shot away was
part of the French penal settlement of
Cayenne and the cries were the higher
notes of its tragic opera. But they af-
fected Capt. Kettle not at ALL He was
there on business; he had been at much
pains to arrive at his present situation,
and had earned bullet scar across the
temple during the process; and as some
time was to elarse before his next move
became due, he was filling up the inter-
vening hours by the absorbed pursuit
Of literature. He squatted on the floor
Of his sandpit, with his teeth set in the
but of a cold cigar, and raped out the
lines of sonnets and transferred them to
"a sheet of sea-stained paper. He used
the stubby bullet of a revolver cartridge
| from lack of more. refined pencil, and his
muse worked with lusty pace, as, in
deed, it was always won't to do when
the world went more than Usually awry
with him.
To even catalogue the little scamp'G
adventures since his parting with Miss
Carnegie in that Tyneside lodging would
be to write lengthy book, and they
are omitted here in toto because to de-
tail them would of necessity compro-
mise worthy men, both French and En-
I,,I 4 I,O., L,
| Kettle to be publicly advertised. Suffice
| it to say, then, that he made his way
out to French Guiana by ways best
known to himself; pervaded Cayenne
under an alias which the local gendarm-
| erie laid bare; exchanged pistol shots
with those in authority to avoid arrest,
and in fact, put the entire PENAL colony,
from the governor down to the meanest
convict into a fever of unrest entirely
on his especial behalf. He was put to
making temporary headquarters in a
mangrove swamp, and completing his
preparations from there, and to say the
least of it, matters went hardly with
him. But at last he got his preliminaries
settled and left his bivouac among the
maddening mosquitoes and the slime
and the snaky tree roots and took to
the seas again in lugsail boat which
he annexed by force of arms from it's
four original owners.
A cold-minded person might say that
the taking of that boat was an act of
glazing piracy; but Kettle told himself
that so far as the French of Cayenne
were concerned he was recognized
belligerant," and so all the maneuvres
of war were candidly open to him. He
had no more qualms in capturing that
lugsail boat from Superior force than
Nelson once had about liking large
ships from French in the hay of Abou-
kir. He had a depot of timed meats
cached by one of his agents up a man
grove creek and un Ter cover of night
he sailed up and got tlese on board. and
built them in tightly Under the thwarts
of his boat &c that tic would not shift
in the seaway. AM finally. again
cloaked by friendly darkness, he ran
onto the beach OF the turtle backed
islet, hid his boat n a gulley of the
sand, scooped out personal residence
where he would be visible C.lly to God
and the sea fowl, and sat L. lself down
to wait for an appointed hour.
BY day the sun griiled him., 10y night |
the sea mists ,lrenched him to the skin, |
and at times gales lifted the surface |
from the caribbean and sent it whis-
ling across the roof OF the isle in vol /
leys of singing spAndrift. Moreover, |
he was constantly pestered by that local
ailment, chills and fever, partly as re-
suit OF two or three thrilling wounds be-
slowed by the gendarmie, and partly as
payment for residence in the miasmatic |
mangrove swamps. So that, on the
whole, life was not very tolerable to
him, and he might have been pardoned
had he cursed Miss Carnegie for send
ing him ON so troublesome an errand.
But he did not do this. He remembered
that she was occupying herself at home
in Newcastle with the creation of poetry
for the British magazines, according to
their agreement, and he forgot his dis
comforts in the glow of a Meeccnas.
Ut was the first time he had been bona
fide patron of letters, and the pleasure
Of it intoxicated him.
A fortnight passed by-he had given
Glare a fortnight in the message he
Struggled into the convict station for
him, to make certain preparations-and
at the end of that space Of time, Capt.
Kettle rolled his MSS inside an oilskin
cover and addressed it to Miss Carnegie
lin case of accidents. He put beckets
oh INC up VI Ills cap, sllppeu his IS~
volver into these, and put the cap ON
his head; and then, stripping to the
buff, he left his form and got up onto
the sand, and walked down its milk
warm surface to the waters edge.
The ripples rang like a million of the
| tiniest bells upon the fine shingle, and
the stars in the velvet might above were
reflected in the water. 1t was far too
still night for his purpose, far too
| dangerously clear. He would have pre-
ferred rain, or even half a gale of wind.
But he had fixed his appointment and,
was not the man to let any detail of
added danger make him break a tryst.
So he waded down into the lonely sea,
and struck out steady breast stroke
| for the isle de Salut, which doomed in
| low black outline across the waters be-
| fore him.
| A more hazardous business than this
part of the mans expedition it would be
| hard to conceive. There were no pris-
oners in the world more jealousy guard
ed than those in the pestiltial isle
ahead Of him. They were forgers, MUIR
derers, or, what the French hate still
more, traitors and forengn spies; and
once they stepped ashore upon the beach,
they were there for always. They were
all life-sentence men. Until ferocious
labor, or the gatherings of the climate
sent them to rest below the soil, they
! were doomed TO main with every breath