The Irish standard., 1911-08-19
cHAS w. ROSSER

Knees oeslue tho ruoe woUuen BUNK,
drew the chest up close in the tight
embrace of her young arms, laid her
cheek against the cold polished sur
face Of it's blackened wood, and cried.
Every question that might have
asked itself-how the thing could
have come there, and what its coming
might pretend to herself or to the
other Of the Aurora's people-was
swept away in a sudden rush Of f1lial
affection and regret which the sight
of it Instantly awoke. It had reached
her with that sudden poignant stab
of memory which inanimate objects,
familiar by long association. seem to
be more potent to call up than the
very persons of the friends with whom
they are associated. The sight of her
father himself could hardly have had
SO instantaneous and overwhelming
an effect upon her as the sight of this
old chest, which was one of the earli-
est of her associations with him.
1t had always stood, until he had
taken 1t with him on that last voyage
OF his, upon certain farther corner
of his desk in the old library. 1t was
one Of those objects of a class that
children always love-smooth, pol
ished, beautiful; beautiful and, at the
same time, defying curiosity.
1t was quite a masterpiece of cabi-
net work. No hinges were visible,
and the cover fitted so closely upon
the box inself that the line which
separated them was hard to discover.
And there was no trace of keyhole or
lock- To those uninitiated into its
secret, it defied any attempt to
open It,
Presently she seated herself on the
bunk, took the little chest on her
knees and set about opening it. Be
tween the cold and her excitement she
found this rather a difficult thing to
do, though her mind never, never
hesitated over the slightest detail of
the necessary formula of procedure.
She knew in just what order to press
in those innocent-looking little orna-
mental tacks in the brass binding; re-
membered the right moment to turn
the box up on it's end and let the
just released steel ball roll down it's
channel to the pocket, where it must
lie before the last pressure upon the
last spring would prove effective. She
no more faltered over it than she
would have faltered over her alphabet
And at last, when her numbed fin
gers had completed their task, the
oh ~
itself, just as 1t had used to, and re-
vealed to her swimming eyes the con.
tents of the interior.
Up to the moment she had not real.
lied what the finding of the dispatch
box meant. 1t had not occurred to
her that full account of her fathers
expedition, narrative which would
reach, perhaps, to the morning of the
last day of all, was lying here, right
under her eyes.
But now when the cover opened and
she saw beneath it thick volume,
bound in red morocco, she realized
that here, under her hand. was the
very object, in search Of which the
Aurora had set out upon her perilous
voyage.
The first sight of her fathers clear,
erect, precise handwriting warmed
her with sudden courage. But even
this new inspiration of courage did
not make her strong enough to turn
back and read the last entry in that
tragic journal first. She tried to do
1t, but the will failed her. So she be-
gan at the beginning. Once she had
plunged into the fascinating nara
tive, the whole of the outside world
faded away from her. She was oblivious
to the fact that the darkness outside
was no longer the mere darkness of
the fog; oblivious to the rising wind
that poured it's icy stream through the
leaky walls of the hut and made the
candle flicker; oblivious, even to the
very sound which she had meant to
wait for-the sound of Toms voice
calling out to her from the yacht and
the sound of other, more alarming,
nearer voices.
They all fell on deaf ears as she
turned page after page of that pre-
cious record OF her fathers life. It
was written, in the main, in the scien-
tific, observant, unimpassioned temper
which she knew so we'll He chron-
icled those days of peril, when their
ship, crushed in the ice, and only kept
from sinking by that very ice, which
had just destroyed her, was drifting
along in the pack to what seemed
certain destruction, as quietly and az
explicitly as he did the uneventful
voyage through Behring strait. The
mans courage was so deeply element
al in him that he could not be self
conscious about it.
He told of the land, the strange, IN
charted shore, whose discovery offer
ed them a respite, at least, from that
destruction; told how he got his re-
naming stores ashore and built the
hut, where, in all human probability,
he and his companions were to spend
the rest Of their lives.
Finally she reached the record of
the day when he had consigned to the