The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1910-06-30


left him free man. Brute though he
had been, Langford was not without
some strong idea of honor and de-
cency. Indeed, he had enjoyed long
and undistributed hours of meditation
upon his sins of omission and commits
sion during his period of GONZALES
cence, and the calm consideration of
character and career had done him
good. At heart, in spite of his brutal
conduct, for which drink had largely
been responsible he was gentleman,
and capable of things fine and high
under the stimulus of some really
great emotion. He had come to real
ize, to put it mildly, what an awful
fool he had been to say nothing of his
villainy. What had led him to this
realization had been the remembrance
of the hours he had passed with Kath-
arine Brenton before the clouds had
arisen which had eliminated in that
awful storm, the recollection of which
fairly made him shudder. However,
he had deceived her by professed ad-
| herence to her wild theories and i'm
possible philosophers, he had honestly
loved her, and association with her
had been of benefit to him. If he
only had not given away to his tenn
per and his appetite! If 1t had not
been for his former obligation!
He had married his wife in a mo-
ment Of boyish infatuation. The union
had been impossible almost from the
first. She was little more than an
adventures, much older than he, who
had entrapped him for his money.
! There had been separation on a lib
eral financial basis, to which the woIn-
an had readily, even cheerfully,
agreed, and he had no lingering re-
mains of affection to hold him back.
Her death was only relief to him.
He felt that he owed reparation to
Katherine Brenton, and he was more
willing to pay the debt because he was
honestly and genuinely in love with
her so far as man Of his tempera-
ment could be in love with a woman.
He wanted to make amends for his
treatment. He would have given any
thing he possessed to have been able
| to say how ashamed he was Of all that
he had done, and to beg her to forgive
him and marry him.
The death of his father and the ne
cessity for the administration of the
vast interests of the bonanza kings
estate prevented him from at once
engaging upon the search which he
promised himself he would make, but
he expedited matters, sometimes to
his own loss, as rapidly as he could,
and after nearly years stay in San
Francisco, he found himself in posi-
tion to undertake his quest. For
year thereafter he and the Southern
Cross traversed the unexplored, unvis-
tied waters of the South seas. He
had landed upon island after island
which he had examined with minute
particularly. Some he had found in
habited by natives, whom, through in
terpreters he had procured, he ques-
toned unavailingly. He ran across
stray vessels trading among the is
lands, and through them with con-
stantly increasing, ever widening me-
diums, he carried on his search, but
without result. In thus sweeping the
Pacific, he visited everything that was
charted and all that he could find
that was not, and was now homeward
bound, convinced that the launch must
have foundered and that he would
never solve the mystery of her disap-
pearanCe.
So assiduously had he prosecuted
his search that the crew of the South
ern Cross, who knew nothing as to the
cause of the eagerness, with the ex-
ception of the ship master, looked
upon him as a harmless visionary.
They had been away so long and had
visited so many islands with so much
hardship, oftentimes with so much
danger from uncharted reefs in the un.
known seas that they were one and all
wildly anxious to return from the, to
them, aimless wandering. If he had
communicated to them at the first his
quest, they would have shared his
eagerness, but he kept it to himself,
as he had kept his own counsel in
San Francisco, and he straitly charged
his sailing master to say nothing of it.
Consequently the lookout on the
fore-topmast cross-tree on a certain
summer morning, catching sight of
dim, blue haze on the horizon far off
| to starboard, made no report of it.
What was the use? It would only de-
| lay matters and they were within a
/ few weeks Of Honolulu now, and an
other fortnight beyond Hawaii would
bring them back to the United States,
for which they all longed with the de-
sire of men who had been away from
home and confined to the narrow
decks of a cruising ship for over a
year.
Something--as TO whether 1t was
Providence or not he was somewhat
doubtful in his mind afterward-
brought LanSford on deck before his
usual time for rising. The watch was
in charge of rather sleepy, stupid
second officer, unimaginative and un-
observant He had not noticed the
land which it was difficult to see from
the deck at any rate, especially as it
did not lie between the yacht and the
sun, and as 1t had not been reported
from the masthead, he knew nothing
of it.
Langford had found sleep impos-
sible. The year of search, the constant
disappointment, the pressing sense of
mystery. the feeling that his conduct
was indeed irreparable had preyed
upon him. He was thin, worn, nervous
and irritable. He walked up and down
the deck in the coal Of the morning