The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-11-11


piped like a bird.
Gently, deeply, easily, the Mary
Cameron, a full-rigged windiammer,
rolled on the off shore tack.
The helmsman nodded at the wheel
The moon was low, and where the
lee rail threw its shadow on the deck,
an unkempt, cringing figure crawled
slowly toward the Jacobs ladder that
trailed in the water at the stern.
The helmsman still nodded.
Slowly, and apparently with pain.
the figure seemed almost to ooze over
the rail and down the ladder into the
oily sea-
slight land breeze made little
rattle in the ropes and spars of the
rigging, and the man at the wheel
Weakened with a start, but his eyes
were forward, and the bobbing yellow
head was left behind unnoticed in the
moonlight.
After a few moments, the main IN
the water struck out slowly, but with
the powerful stroke of the practiced
swimmer, toward the low shore line
five miles away. 1t was just under
the moon, for he had marked it down
from the deck before he went over.
board.
He had run away.
1t seemed to him that his whole life
had been a series of flights from the
dangers that he had not had the
nerve to face.
God knows they were right He
was yellow A college mate had first
put the prefix yellow" to his name
when he quit cold in the long-distance
swimming race at its close pressed
/ finish. 1t was a nickname that stuck
to him ever since. It fitted. He had
been Yellow Jack in college; yellow
Jack when business went wrong and
left him penniless; Yellow Jack when
his fiance, undaunted offered to
marry him and to move into a cot
tage; Yellow Jack, when he hit the
alcohol splashed toboggan that ended
in his being shanghaied, in drunken
stupor, from a waterfront boarding
house and carried aboard the Mary
Cameron.
On the long leg from Frisco out to
the Hawaiian Islands. and from there
on across the line, Captain Ezra Smith
had considerably amused himself from
time to time by knocking him down.
The mate, too, had found the yellow
streak in his makeup, and had used
him for punching bag; until at last
the whole ships company from cook
to forecastle hands, were hammering
him at will, and he had degenerate1
into a covering, sinking cur, ducking
and throwing up his arm 10 protect
his head at the least motion by any
man aboard.
Yellow Jack!
He admitted, as he swan there in
the moonlight, that the name was ap-
prOpriate. He knew the yellow
streak was there; for though he could
swim like a fish, he was feeling at
that moment the sickening, sinking I
sensation in the pit of his stomach
that is the invariable accompaniment
of physical cowardice.
He began to fear that he could
never swim those five long miles to
shore-that he could not get through |
the reef that always surrounds these
South Sea islands-that shark
Across the streak of moonlight |
down which he was swimming cut |
suddenly a triangular dorsal fin.
Fascinated with horror, his eyes
followed it as, with hawk-like swoop |
it circled toward him, leaving a phos-
phorescent trail in its wake in the |
black oily waters outside the streak |
of moonlight!
He saw it dead for him with
rush. Another moment and he knew
that an arm OF leg would be torn !
from his body. His legs shut to-
gether in a spasm of terror; he
shrieked; and, with his arms clamped !
close to his sides, sank as if he had
an anchor tied to his feet.
AS hands met thighs, he felt the
knife in his belt; and when lack of
breath made him kick out to rise to !
the surface, his fingers drew the .
knife from it's sheath. 1t was gripped .
tight in his hand, as his head rose
from the water, and the cold, Shiny |
belly of the shark swung by, rubbing
his cheek
Again he shrieked in terror.
Frantically he clutched at the en-
envy with his left hand and stabbed |
viciously, despairingly with the knife .
in his right. The blade went home |
10 the hiIt and the blood sDurted out