The record-union., 1899-06-14
A LUMP OF COAL.

SISeS Il minutes west lOuSlluOe, WHICH
meant that she was coming up to that
dangerous collection of reefs and rocks
known as the Abrolhos Shoals The
chart which covered them was from a
French survey in 1861, and as any
amount of unrecorded changes might
have been wrought since then by that
minute mason of the deep, the coral
insect, Captain Grimshaw was very
much on the qui vive 80 long as his
ship was in the neighborthood. For,
being a wise master mariner, he de-
pended but little on either the chart
or the Abrolhos Light itself.
But if the captain did not fancy this
particular patch of the sea for reasons
relating to navigation, the third en-
g1neer did for purposes of his own. In
short, he hoped to earn the ships in
surance money and couple of hun
dred pounds for himself somewhere in
the vicinity. 1t was an excellent local
ity for a plausible story about the
Goshawk running on some uncharted
shoal and sinking as she backed into
deep water. So when he was relieved
of his half watch at 6 O'Clock by the
Chief Engineer, he went straight to
the engine room mess table for his tea,
carefully forgetting his blue jacket
where it hung on rail on the for
ward side of the engine room, bulkhead.
Having partaken hastily and sparingly
of the bad tea and potato hash sup
piled, he turned into his own room,
locked the door, and arranged a pair
of trousers to hang so that one Of the
legs might cover the keyhole. Then
he knelt, though not exactly in prayer,
beside his sea chest, and proceeded to
unpack it, till at length he reached a
small wooden box with a sliding top. At
first sight it did not appear why his
hand should tremble little as he
pulled the lid aside and drew from its
well-wadded cradle a very common
place lump of coal.
1t was exactly like any other piece
of coal, about the size OF a large fist
say the mate's-and it had all the jetty
sparkle and shine of the newly broken
article The only difference between it
and the other Jumps in the bunkers was
that 100000 worth and a few mems
lives lay in its nascent possibilities.
On closer inspection, however, it re-
vealed one little popularity, little
square projection such as any lady or
gentleman who does not use a stem
winder may see in his watch any might
of the week. Tom Tudor's own watch
key, which he now tried upon it to
see if everything was in proper work.
ing order, fitted it exactly as a matter
of fact
Another hour and it will be pretty
nearly dark That will be my time,
he thought to himself with anything but
a fiendish chuckle. AS yet he was
considerably removed from the villain
teres atque rotundus of sanguinary
fiction. OF a truth he was conscious
at the moment of a curious sickness, a
tickling in his stomach which not even
the receEt potato stew could account
for. No, it was the thought of the
coming appalling moment of flame and
death-and the Captains daughter.
Curse the Captains daughter! When
he had entered into this nefarious con-
tract with certain unnamable people at
home, he had not counted on this dis
turbing element. That he, hard heart
ed and hard headed scoudrel as he was.
should feel this immense tenderness for
a pretty ailing girl, away with her
father for a voyage on account Of her
health, was an alteration beyond all
calculation. Was it love? 1t worried
and pricked him, and it awakened old
unwelcome chords in the atrophied
sense Of fitness which had been his
conscience. Yes. 1t was love, and
bless Alice, the Captains daughter.
IF she hadn't been so hard on me
last night I could never have done it.,
ran his thoughts, waking fierce ten
derness in his sallow, handsome face.
"A touch of her hand and the Goshawk
would have stemmed the Thames River
again! Suppose the ship sank in a
couple of minutes, before they had time
to lower the boats. There are sharks
about. I don't mind sending an old
fireman or a trimmer to hotter fur
naces. But the flop of the brutes round
her sweet body! It's horrible. BY
heavens. 1 can't do it, after ALL"
He bent his forehead against the
raised lid of his trunk. But I'm talk
ing bethel rot. The cursed thing is cal
culated to give the ship half an hour
There'll be lots of time for everybody
to get clear except the poor fellows who
get blown to atoms from the stoke
hole Then the weather's quiet, and
we're right in the track of ships-cer-
tain to be picked up within forty eight
hours
He handled the black mass on his
fingers.
Five turns of the key, and then five
minutes before the explosion, every
turn a minute! If I push the job
through I'll never tackle another. God
of heaven, 1 wish we were all safe in
the boa.s,''
He replaced the grim handful of doom
in it's cradle again. replaced it in its box
and went up to the windy deck. The
heat below laid a fiery hand on his
throat and brain.
A slice of young moon, with a few at
tendant stars, slowly climbed into lumi-
nance against the last ardors of the
sunset, as he leaned modify against
the deckhouse.
How the misery hour caught up its
golden coin of minutes and fled!
Time time, time-time. time time, .
sang the watch bell monstrously soon.
Its got to be done!' he muttered
between his locked teeth, as he stepped
unsteadily out of the moonlight along
the engine-room passage, once more un-
packed the fatal lump, turned the Ike
five times, and with a flying heart de-
scended the steel ladder to the engine
room, the bomb ticking in the loose
breast of his shirt as he went.
'Hullo. Tudor. Forgot your Jacket
sang out the chief, as he stopped over
the rails and tried the heat Of his bear
ings.
Aye" replied the third engineer, as
he passed.
In the fierce tunnel of light from one
of the open furnaces the nude stokers,
and a trimmer piling forward the coal