The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1912-01-25

49,
doctors table; nor, so far as he could
determine, was she taking the air on
deck. Was It possible, then, that he
had been right, that she had reason
equally as compelling as his own for
secluding herself? Or, was it simply
(and infinitely more probably that
Mrs. Prynne was indisposed, an ener-
waited victim of excessive heat?
The latter conjecture proved ap-
parently the right one, Mrs. Prynne
failing to appear during the two fol-
lowing days, while the Panjnab was
rocking down the Red Sea channel;
and O'Rourke grew interested enough
Che had little else to occupy his mind,
for duller voyage he had never
KNOWN to give Danny permission to
pursue his inquiries: with an injunc.
ton, however, prohibiting too lavish
an expenditure of the boys wealth OF
affection. Whereupon Danny return
ed with the information that the mis-.
tress of Cecile. the maid, was suffer
ing from heat exhaustion.
This was entirely reasonable.
O'Rourke accepted the demolition Of
his airy castles of Romance, laughed
at himself, in part was successful in
putting the woman out of mind;
doubtless, in time, he would have done
50 altogether had not the lady chosen
to take the air the night that the
Panjnab negotiated the Straits of
Bab-el-Mandeb For on that same
night, O'Rourke, himself wakeful, was
minded to sit up and watch the lights
of Perrin Island heave into view.
O'Rourke, in a deck-chair on the
starboard side, we'll cloaked in the
shadow of the deck above, watch
ed the other passengers, one by one,
quiet their chatter, yawn, stretch and
slip below to stuffy staterooms.
He suffered dreamy eye to rove
where it would, greedy of the nights
superb illusion.
Four bells-two o'clock-chimed
upon his consciousness like physical
shock. He verified the hour by his
watch and, reluctantly enough, agreed
that it was time he got himself to
bed. He half rose from his chair, then
sank back with an inaudible catch Of
his breath. Without warning the ap-
partition of a white-clad woman had
invaded the promenade deck. For an
instant he hardly credited his eyes,
then, with nod of recognition, he
identified Mrs. Pryrne.
Unquestionably unconscious of his
presence in the shadow, she fell to
pacing to and fro. Now and again,
she stopped, and with chin Graded in
her small hands. elbows on the rail,
watched the approaching cliffs of
Arabia; then, with perhaps sigh re-
turned to her untinrely constitutional.
Partly because he had no wish to
startle her, partly because he was
glad to watch unobserved Che had
rare eye for beauty, the O'Rourke),
the wanderer sat on without moving,
stirred only by active curiosity. The
strangeness of her appearance upon
deck at such an hour fascinated his
imagination no less than her per-on
held his eye. He gave himself over
to vain and proftless speculation.
. Why, he wondered, should she
keep to her cabin the greater part of
the evening, only to take the air when
none might be supposed to observe
her?
Why. if not to escape such observa.
ton? Then, he told himself. he must
be right in his supposition that she
had something to fear, someone to
avoid What or whom? What was it
all, what the mystery that, as he
watched her, seemed to grow, to cling
about her like some formless, i'm
palpable garment?
Events conspired to weave the man
int the warp and wool of her affairs;
more quickly than he could grasp the
reason for his sudden action, he found
himself a-foot and dashing aft at top
speed. But an instant gone Mrs
Prynne had passed him, unmolested
and wrapped in her splendid isola-
ton; and then from the after part of
the deck he had heard a slight and
guarded cry of distress, and a small
scuffling sound
In two breaths he was by her side
and found her struggling desperately
in the arms of a lascar-a deck-hand
on the steamer
At first the strangeness Of the busi-
ness SO amazed O'Rourke that he
paused and held his hand, briefly
rooted in action. For although 1t was
apparent that she had been caught off
her guard, wholly unprepared against
assault, and while she struggled fierce
ly to break the lascar's hold, the wom-
an still uttered no cry. A single
scream would have brought her aid;
yet she held her tongue.
The two, the woman's slight, white
figure and the lascar's gaunt and sim
envy one, strained and fought, swaying
silently in the shadows, tensely, with
the effect of fragment of some dis
ordered nightmare. But then, as the
1ascar seemed about to OverDOwer hiS