The Saint Paul globe., 1900-05-14

sufhced' to fling dark shadows upon the
| decks, and these shadows moved as the
brig rolled. But she saw no man: and
what ghostly hand then struck that bell ?
For the night might go before the swing
| of the blight of gear should, by adju t
ment of the rolling of the vessel, exactly
hit the bell again and make it ring.
The captain began to call, Johnny,
Johnny, where are you? Come out of
your hiding place, little sonny. Here's
father waiting for YOU
He breathed deep, listening and gazing
about him; but no other reply reached his
ear than the sob of water under the bow,
the moan Of night wind in the rigging, the
sullen slap of canvas against the mast.
DO you see him?" the cap. ain aske l,
and the eyes of madness sparkled in the
moonshine as he turned his gaze upon
the girl.
She answered huskily, "Io do not see
him. Who struck that bell?"
He did," said the captain. "Oh God!
| Oh, everlasting Father! Why docs he
hide himself from me?"
He clasped his hands and raised them
and looked up, and in that postu e he
muttered as though he prayed, and all the
while Julia was staring about her, faint
with fear, and with the sight of that i'm
ploring figure of afflicted manhood: fOr
who had struck the bell? And did III.
dSotu COII6 " lIle dSdIll III DHdHlCIl7
And was the spirit of Johnny invisibly
present?
Poor Julia.
"He may come out of his h ding place
If we go aft" said the captain in his
voice of cunning. Stop
He stepped to the little cabocse and en-
tered 1t.
''Not here, not here he g-oan d as
he came out, but we must have pltience.
q will cit nd VNa'n c{t nd wa to-
the deck, and al any moment you m "
see his little figure coming along"
Weak with fear and superstition, an l
the horror of her ghastly situation, sc
followed the miserable man to the deck
| house. He entered and brought cut two
chairs, which he placed in front of the
| door, and they sat down 1t was ce tain
that the man believed the child to be IN
this abandoned vessel, and this was as
surance to Julia that he would not COM
pei her to enter the boat and sail away
in search of the boy The thought in
spired some faint hope; she knew that
even If Hardy did not seek her. any hour
next day might bring along some ship
which she could signal by 1ourishi1g g her
handkerchief. But Hardy! She began t.
think whilst her dreadful companion sat
beside her staring along the moon-lighted
deck, and waiting for his boy to come
She fully understood that she had been
drugged; her thoughts went to the med
icine chest; had the captain p-is ned
Hardy and the rest of the crew that he
might steal her from the ship? This puZ-
zled her, for if the crew had been drugged
they might have been drugged to death
by the irresponsible hand of this mad
man. and Hardy would be lost to her
forever, and his ship would not come to
rescue her.
These were her thoughts, "too deep for
tears" but 1t was fortunate that she had
slept soundly and well in the boat, for
now, though wearied in bone and faint
at heart, she was as sIeepless as the poor
tireless creature beside her. She could
not have endured to enter the deck house
and rest there; she needed the companion
ship of the moon and the stars and the
visible surface of the deep blackening
out from either hand the wake Of the
luminary to It's limitless recesses. The
whisper of the wind in the rigging was
companionship, but the movements Of the
| shadows upon the whitened planks were
perpetual fear, for who had struck the
bell? and was the vessel haunted? Her
throat was parched, and she asked for
water.
Certainly; oh. yes. He is long in COM
ing, but when he comes we'n rejoin the