The Bon Homme County independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1904-1913, 1911-03-16
CHAPTER XXI.-(Continued.)

however just or merited his fate be
We could take the honest fellows from
the ship, l would persist and do all
humanity possible for those who were
sick. 1t would be a reproach to me
afterwards, l feared, memory Of a
day neither altogether glorious nor
altogether merciful. AS to the great
hulk herself, my glass showed her
decks clearly, but did not discover any
signs of life upon them. Just as had
left her drifting at the mercy of wind
and current, SO now did she lie sagging
in the troughs of the rollers, q piteous
spectacle of impotency and despair.
The very sails upon her masts were
torn and ragged as though long neg
lected by a seaman's hands. No smoke
issued from her funnel: the boats had
been taken up;'I could espy nc COM
mander upon her bridge nor DISCERN
that brisk grouping of hands up'l the
fo'castle which bespeaks a VOYAGE
She might have been phantom ship
q sea vision conjured by those whom
isolation and suffering have schooled
to that abnormal habit of mind which
receives such impressions and makes
realities of them.
take another lok at her IL you please.
Miss Joan is sleeping, l imagine. She
will know nothing Of this, and the men
are not to suppose. that l am mindful
Of what i owe them. Let us learn, II
we can, what is happening over yon-
ier-then we shall turn homeward
with lighter hearts. Even our misery
not coal enough for such q diversion"
He had no reasonable objection to
offer to this--and, to be plain, our very
course must carry us in some such d.
rection. We had stood by the shir all
night. and she lay now upon our port
bow, distant, perhaps, two miles from
US on a spirited sea which gamboled
before a fresh westerly wind that
would be half gale presently. AS we
drew nearer, the pictures, which a good
telescope had revealed to me, were not
oelied. / could now make out a few
hands at the fo'castle hatch: there
was a solitary figure by the taffrail,
and two or three more about the main
deck. Nowhere, however. did any
not seen the afflicted. with my own
eyes. dressed their wounds and heard
their woeful complaints, it would have
oeen impossible to credit the burden
IF human anguish which that vast
1erelict must carry. That such a
ship could now do US mischief seemed
beyond all belief incredible. None the
less. the fact must be recorded that we
were still some half a mile from her
when she fired gun at us, and q shell
fell idly into the sea not a hundred
yards from our foremost. Nor was
this ALL for a second report immedi-
ately rang out from her decks, and a
great flame Of fire leapt up above
.hem, though no shell followed after
nor could the quickest eye detect the
path of any shot.
Larry" said, that is what I have
been expecting all along. The breech
of one Of their guns is blown out
wonder how many lives 1t has cost 2"
But you are not going on board to
see, sir?"
Indeed, no. Their shot has answer
ed all my questions. 1t is homeward
bound now, Larry-full speed ahead
rs soon as you willard God help any
innocent man If there be such over
gonder."
His rejoinder was the bell ringing
out loudly in our engine-room. To
the quartermaster he cried in cap
tain's sharp voice. "One point star
starboard 1t is" I perceived that we
had altered our course almost imper-
ceptibly, and were now steering almost
direct to the northeast, which must
bring us to the islands OF the Azores,
and the coal we needed so sorely. If
there were any regrets, one man alone
suffered them and remained silent. It
from the beginning; I had hoped SO
much, dared SO much. feared so much,
because of It, that this silent flight
from the scene, this abandonment OF
The quest, this AFFECT submission to our
necessity, could be accounted no less
than a personal humiliation which
must remain with me whatever the
subsequent achievement
Long I stood there, my eyes upon the
horizon, my vision enchanted by the
void as though voice must come to
me from the unknown and say This
is the truth; this this is the hour" We
were alone on the waste Of waters
now: a brave ship running homeward
to the cities and the cottages Of Eng
and merry men; upon whose decks the
prattle of little children might in fancy
be heard, their childish forms uplifted,
their young lips kissed. From all this
Joy l stood apart. What had home to
give, what were the shores of England
to me If might not find there the love
and confidence of my little Joan? Not
as a child but as a woman had she
spoken last night when she said: "Teil
me the story of my life and shall have
the right to listen to you" There could
be no rest for me, no thought of mans
love for her, until the record proved her
not the daughter Of General Fordibras,
out MS VlCClIn. y i HdQ DGeU CONSCIOUS
Of this from the beginning. but the in
evitability Of IT required to me now
when the great ship had disappeared
from my ken, and all my hopes seemed
to sink with her.. To win Joan's love
I must snatch her secret from a rOgue's
keeping, carry IT triumphantly to her,
and so write It that all the world might
read. God alone knew how such
task as this might be accomplished.
wonder not that it's very magnitude
appalled, me.
Unrepentant, write these lines, and
vet they can conjure up for me a vision
of London. so desired. that all the years
will never blot 1t from my memory. 1
had been in England two months then.
A Uttered writing table in my private
sitting room at Strand hotel bore wit
ness TO my activities-an untasted
elixir in a wineglass by my side spoke
Of a woman's anxieties and Of her devo-
ton Certainly my dear sister Harriet
had sufficiently impressed upon these
people the -ecessity of treating all
carpets and curtains by an antiseptic
process, and the profound wisdom of
warming the interiors of those hats
which subsequently were to adorn the
heads of males.
To my dear sister, then, be this " ell
earned tribute paid. Doubly fortunate.
l might write down another name and
spare no encomiums. Joan Fordibras,
my little Joan Of Dieppe and the sun
shine, was with us in the hotel, and no
less a slave of mine than the other.