The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-01-09
TEE SALT HERALD: SUNDAY JANUARY o. 1888

ridge from lack OF more refined pencil,
and his muse worked with lusty pace,
as, Indeed, it was always wont to do
when the world went more than usually
awTy with him.
To even catalogue the little scamp s
adventures since his parting with Miss
Carnegie in that Tyneside lodging,
would be TO write a lengthy book, and
they are omitted here in toto because
to detail them would Of necessity COM
promise worthy men, both French and
English, who do not wish their traffic
with 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 Cay
enne under an alias which the local
gendarmeTie laid bare; exchanged pis-
tol shots with those in authority to
avoid arrest, and, in fact, put the en-
tire 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 tenn
porary headquarters in a mangroVe
swamp, and completing his prepara-
lions from there, and TO say the least
OF 1t, 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 a lugsail beat which
he annexed by force of arms from its
four original owners.
A cold-minded person might say that
the taking of that boat was an act of
glarlng piracy; but Kettle told himself
that, so far as the French of Cayenne
We're concerned, he was a recognized
belllSerent. ed so al the maneuVers
OF war were candidly open 10 him. He
had no more qualms in capturing that
a
Nelson once had about taking large
shlps from French in the bay of Abou-
klr- He had depot of timed meats
cached by one of his agents UP a man
grove creek, and, under cover of night,
he sailed up and got these on board,
and built them in tightly under the
thwarts of his boat so that they would
not shift in the seaway. And. finally,
again cloaked by friendly darkness he
ran onto the beach of the turtle backed
Isiet, hid his boat in a gulley of the
sand, scooped out a personal residence
where he would be visible only to God
and the seafowl, and sat himself down
TO wait for an appointed hour
by day the sun grilled him; by night
the sea mists drenched him to the skin
and at times gales lifted the surface
from the caribbean and sent it whist
ing across. the roof of the isle in vol
Ieys of singing spendrift. Moreover,
ne was constantly pestered by that To-
cal allment, chillS and fever, partly as
a result OF two or three trifiing wounds
bestowed by the gendarmerie, and part
ly as payment for residence in the mails
matte 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, ac-
cording to their agreement, and he for
got his diScomfortS in the glow of a
MaecenaS. 1t was the first time he had
been a bona fide patron of letters, and
the pleasure of it intoxicated him.
A fortnight passed by-he had given
Clare a fortnight in the message he
struggled into the convict station for
him, to make certain preparatiOnS-and
ct the end of that space of time Cap
tain Kettle rolled his MSS inside an OIL
skin cover and addressed it to Miss
Carnegie-in case of accidents He put
beckets Oh the top of his cap, slipped
his revolver 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
surface to the waters edge J
The ripples rang like a million of the
tiniest bells upon the fire shingle, and
the stars in the velvet night above
were reflected in the water. 1t was
far too still night for his purpose, far
too dangerously clear. He would have
preferred rain, or even half gale of
wind. But he had fixed his appoint
ment, and was not the man to let any
detail of added danger make him break
a tryst. So he waded down into the