The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1912-06-25

wards him with resistless impetus.
Intuitiyely he swung to one side, to
the right, and 1eapt to his feet. At
that the knife, kris sinuous and
keen, ran cold upon the flesh Of his
chest, slit through his shirt, caught
in the thong that held the Pool of
Flame. and tore out, leaving a Tapping
hole and scraping a hands breadth
of skin from his forearm. Needless
OF this, only in fact subconsciously
aware that the chamois bag had fallen
to the deck, he caught at the hand
that had welded the kris; his fingers
closed about the wrist, and. bracing
himself, he swung the assassin OF his
feet So doing, his fingers slipped on
the mans greasy skin and he STUN
bled of his balance.
His object, however, had been &C
complished The murderer, hurled a
yard or more through the air, fell and
slid along the deck into a group of
lascars. one Of whom, like a nine-pin.
gas knocked over and fell atop Of
him.
O'Rourke recovered and stepped for.
ward, revolver poised to administer
the quietus to the murderer-an ami
able intention which was, however.
doomed to Illustration. With almost
inconceivable swiftness the group Of
lascars had become mere tangle OF
arms and legs, a melange of strug-
Cling limbs and bodies. Where he
had thought to find single PROSTATE
form, there were six struggling in con-
fusion on the deck.
For a thought he stayed his finger
on the trigger, waiting to pick out the
| undermost and STAY him first of all,
unwilling, furthermore, to waste one
of the four invaluable cartridges re-
naming in his revolver. And then
Unexpectedly the tragedy seemed over
and done with altogether.
From the bottom of the heap Of bod
! les terrible cry of mortal anguish
| shrilled loud; and almost at once the
mob seemed to resolve into its orig
inal elements. Five lascars crawled,
arose, or flung themselves away from
the sixth, who lay inert, prone, limbs
still twitching, knife buried In his
back.
For a thought the tableau held,
there in the pure brilliance of the
moonlight; the half a dozen standing
| figures, O'Rourke a space apart from
the rest, and two bodies, the one face
down, Quick with a face to the stars,
each with it's dread background; a
black stain that grew and spread SLOW
ly upon the white, dazzling
planks.
Quietly the tallest of the lascars
moved forward, knelt and drew the
knife from the back of his dead fell
low. He Strengthened up, facing
O'Rourke without a tremor, his eyes
on his cummerbund:
"Do not shoot, ssahib," he said
smoothly in excellent English. "De
not shoot, sahib, for it is 1 who have
avenged. This dog" and with his toe
he stirred the thing at his feet, "rar
amok Now he is dead"
This was the serang who spoke
O'Rourke eyed him coldly through &
prolonged silence. At length, "Tha
seems quite evident" he admitted
coolly. Pick up that body and throw
1t overheard" he commanded sharply
In obedience to a sign from the Sc
rang, two of the lascars seized tn,
body. A subsequent splash oversid,
told the Irishman that his order hat
been carried out. But he heard 4
! abstractedly, confronted as he wa
with a problem whose difficulty wa
not to be underestimated, the problem
embodied in the statuesque, impertur
bable serang.
1t was hard to know what to dc
what to believe, what action to take
If he were right in his surmise, the sc
rang should rightly be shot down In
stantly, without an instant's respite
Yet the heartless brutality upon whic
his theory was based made him hes
tate. 1t was difficult to believe tina
the serang had been able to accom-
plish what O'Rourke was inclined t
credit him with; that he, the wielde
of the kris, the murderer of Quicl
thrown off his feet by the Irishman'
attack, had deliberately involved hi
fellows with him in his fall and prof
ed by the confusion to Stay one upo
whom he could throw the blame fc
all that had happened.
The weapon quivered in O'Rourke'
grasp. More than once in that brie
d debate he was tempted to shoot tn
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