The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1909-08-29

blinked sullenly, the night signal Of
distress at sea
The Hankow's skipper and first Of
fieer, bulky In listers, were on the
bridge now, and it was the "Old Mans
hOarser voice which called this time,
Bark ahOy! What bark is that?"
Again the answer came back, shrill
and incomprehensible. Don't talk
English, 1 guess" muttered the skipper
He glanced down the opening of the
bridge companion and saw John stand
ing in the glare from the open door,
You talk French, Mr.. Grierson?" he
asked. Come up and try her. Those
topsails set Frenchy."
SO, braced on the overhanging end of
the bridge, while the Hankow wallowed
inertly in the swells which Tapped her
side forty feet below. John hurled frag
nents of speech, hastily recalled, out
into the night. And gradually fragment
Of Information struggled back up the
wind. Thes tranger was the bark
Duchesse de--sOmething, Of Marseilles,
some number Of days cut from Hong
Kong bound to Valparaiso.
ASK him what he wants. the skipper
directed.
The answer might have been an order
| in Chinese from the menu of the Shark
Fin Restaurant, for all John could make
Of it.
''Wen,'' said the skipper impatiently,
tell him to send a boat aboard, and be
quick about it. He's lost us hours al
ready"
John delivered the message, and then
| there was nothing to do but wait And
as they waited the scene changed. Sud
denly, yet so imperceptibly that no man
| could mark the metamOrphOsis, all the
inspiring majesty and grave beauty Of
the sea was gone, and in its place was
a personality Of mysterious and hostile
! power. The water was a bottOmless
| gulf Of blackness now, and in its black
| and oily depths, where it seemed that
one might sing uEendingly, strange
| fOrmless shadows fitted. a gusty wind
/ wind pulled over it, the moon was
yelled behind bank Of cloud; from the
| bark, fallen far to ieeward, the sullen
| lanterns glimmed very dimly. To cross
| the wilderness of thrusting swells which
| lay between and venture beneath the
| Hankows wallOwing sides in an open
/ boat was a good bit of adventure in
| itself. Or, so it seemed to the passen-
! gers. They had hocked on deck, and
| fragments of their excited conversation
! hoated up TO the bridge.
7 But the officers and the Chinese boat
/ swain were busy with preparations for
| a visitor. A bOatline was rugged over
a snaky thing Of rope and wood, was
| dropped over the quarter, and presently
| the plash and crea.k of oars came from
| the darkness astern. BOathOOks and
/ blades rasped along the plates, there
/ was a mUff1ed command, a dim figure
| leaped from the tossing boat to the
/ whipping ladder, and in a moment the
/ midnight visitor had clambered over
/ the rail and stood in the glare Of the
| deck light by the saloon conpanionway,
They made a strange contrast, the
/ little sailOrman from the south of
| France, with his piraticaI shock Of
/ bristling hair and beard and his bare
| feet and his shirt open over his shaggy
| chest, and the sleek and cOddled pas
| sengers who stared at him. For a
| moment they pressed close. Then a
wave Of disappointment seemed to
/ strike them. They had come on deck
! expecting very likely a rescue at sea
! conducted in the approved style of the
] story books, with a pale row of half
! drowned or half-starved wrethces to
! feast their pity on, and they found in
! stead a disgracefully cheerful raga-
muffin, whose swart face flashed into
an alluring smile as he saw them
| shrink from him. Pardon, Mesdames,'
ne said, but I come in the costume of
my profession"
In the disenchanted crowd John Grier-
son, advancing at the shippers side,
saw only the face of little Miss Min
turn. She was not shrinking or dis
| appointed. Her lips were parted, her
/ eyes were shining with an excitement
which increased as the moments
/ passed. For at last she had the re-
ward of all her questioning. OF all the
passengers she alone could appreciate
the story of the little captain from the
! South Of France. For it was a very
! commonplace story he told the skipper
! through Johns hating tongue, so much
] so that before long most of his audi
/ tors turned away to seek more exciting
! occupation.
His ship was the Duchesse de Richie
/ lieu, he said a steel bark of Marseilles,
/ from home to Valparaiso, Chilli, with
| machinery. She was a hundred and
| twenty days out from Hong Kong, her
! last port of call, because Of head winds
A hundred and twenty days, four
months, she had been beating up along
/ the circle which even the old Hankow
| could cover in ten days. Miss AIinturn,
/ listening behind Johns shoulder,
plucked unconsciously at his sleeve. /
She understood what those simple
words hid. and knew the hOpelessly
maddening mOnOtOny Of those months,
| how watch after watch, day after day,
week after week, the wind had hung
ahead, and now, with head sails slat-
! ting, and with the k-breaking hurry
of "Mainsail haulr' and Let go and
haul" and all the weary labor of tack
ing ship, the bark had flOundered on her
zigZag course, forever falling back to
| ieeward, and vet forever doggedly hold
ing on along the path which chambers
up over the great northern shoulder Of
the earth to plunge down its southern
slope with the rush Of the Trades be !
hind it,
Four weary months the little captain /
had held her nose to it, on the road to
Valparaiso. But provisions had begun /
to fail, and at last he had had to ease
her off and reach for this ocean lane. /
They had been very glad that night at /
sunset, he said, bien rejouis, to sight /
smoke from the royal yard.
And what could the Hankow do for /
them?
They wished to buy a barrel of beef /
and two barrels of -four, and if the /
captain would be so kind and had it to I
spare, a sack Of sugar and some chOco- !
late! Chocolate was a comforting thing |
Wafer they had. thanks to their con- /
densers and le bon Dieu.
Before the little man had finished the /
first officer strobe away, with the sol /