Omaha daily bee., 1899-05-07

to wait before he could send her word Of his
safety? II he was to be Of real service TO
the man he venerated he must be lost long
enough for the public mind to have become
settled in regard to the mystery OF the Webb
murder and for his own boastful connection
with it to be forgotten. This might mean
years of exile. He rather thought II did;
meanwhile his mother! OF himself he
thought little.
BY shutdown he felt himself sufficiently
recovered from his bruises to go UP on deck.
It was a mild night and the sea was run
ming in smoothly, long waves that as yet
but family presaged the storm brewing In
the distant horizon. AS he inhaled the
fresh air the Joy of renewed health began
to infuse its life into his veins and lift the
oppression from his heart. and, glad for a
few minutes of quiet enjoyment, he with
drew to n solitary portion OF the deck and
allowed himself to forget his troubles in
contemplation of the rapidly deepening sky
and boundless stretch of waters.
But such griefs and anxieties as weighed
upon this mans breast are not so easily
shaken off. Before he realized 1t his
thoughts had required to the old theme
and he was wondering II he was really of
sufficient insignifcanCe in the eyes of his
fellow-townsmen not to be sought for and
found in that distant country to which he
was bound. Would they. in spite OF his
precautions, suspect that he had planned
this evasion and insist on his return or
would he be allowed to slip away and drop
out OF sight like the white froth he was
watching on the top of the ever-shifting
waves? He had boosted of possessing a
witness. Would they believe that boast and
send a detective in search of him or would
they take his words for the bombast they
really were and proceed with their invest'-
cations in happy relief at the loss OF MS
intrusive assistance?
As this was a question impossible for him
to answer he turned to other thoughts
and fretted himself for a while with
memories of Amabel's disdain aud Fred
erick's careless acceptance of a sacrifice he
could never know the cost of. mixed
strangely with relief at being free of it all
and on the verge OF another life. AS the
dark settled his head fell further and
further forward on the rail he was
leaning against, till he became to any pass
ing eye but a blurred shadow mixing with
other shadows equally immovable.
Unlike them, however, his shadow sud
denly shifted. Two men had drawn near
him, one speaking pure Spanish and the
other English. The English was all that
Sweetwater could understand and this half
of the conversation was certainly startling
enough. Though he could not, of course,
know to what or whom it REFERRED, and
though it certainly had nothing to do with
him or any interest he represented. or upder-
stood, he could not help listening ana re-
Numbering every word. The English-s peak
ing man uttered the first sentence he COM
pretended. 1t was this:
sSbo1 ~ ha tonipht
The answer was in Spanish.
Again the English voice:
HE has come up. l saw him distinctly
as he passed the second mast
More Spanish; then English.
''Yo may If you want to, but I'll never
breathe easy while he's on the ship. Are
YOU sure he's the fellow We fear?"
A rapid flow of words from which Sweet
water got nothing. Then slowly and dis
tinctly in the sinister tones he had already
begun to shiver at:
every good. The R. F. A. should pay well
for this" with the quick addition following
a hurried whisper: "All right! I'd send a
dozen men to the bottom for half that
| money. But ware there! Here's a fellow
watching us! If he has heard
Sweetwater turned, saw two desperate
faces projected toward him, realized that
| something awful, unheard of was about to
happen, and would have uttered a yell of
dismay but that the very intensity of his
| fright took away his breath. The next
minute he felt himself launched into space
| and enveloped in the darkness of the chilling
headlong into the sea.