The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1912-06-14

| feet. ~ doing. his nngers slipped on
the man's 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 oil
l~ascars, one Of whom, like a nine-pin,
was knocked over and fell atop Oh
him.
O'Rourke recovered and stepped Tor
ward, revolver poised TO administer
the q~uietus TO the murderer-an ami
able intention which was, however,
doomed to Illustration. With almost
inconceiyable swiftness the group OF
lascars had become a mere tangle OF
arms and legs, a melange of strug'
Cling limbs and bodies. Where he
had thought to find a single PROSTATE
form, there were six struggling In Goa
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 a 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. a knife buried in his
back.
For a thought the tableau held.
there IN the pure brilliance of the
moonlight; the half a dozen standing
figurex O'Rourke a space apart from
the rest. and two bodies, the one face
down, Quick with a face. to the stars,
each with its 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 fel.
low. He Strengthened up, facing
O'Rourke without a tremor, his eyes
atire, and wiped the blade of the kris
IN hic III m arh,,nd
DO not shoot. sahib," he said
smoothly in excellent English. do
not shoot, sahib, for 1t is | who have
avenged. This dog" and with his toe
he stirred the thing at his feet, ran
amok. Now he is dead"
This was the serang who spoke.
CRourke eyed him coldly through a
prolonged silence. At length, That
seems quite evident" he admitted
coolly. "Pick up that body and throw
it overheard" he commanded sharply.
In obedience to a sign from the Sc.
rang, two of the lascars seized the
body. A subsequent splash oversize
told the lrishman thai his order had
been carried out. But he heard it
abstractedly, confronted as he was
with a problem whose difficulty was
not to be underestimated, the problem
embodie4 in the %statuesque, inpertur-
bable serang.
1t was hard to know what to do,
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 which
his theory was based made him hest.
tate. 1t was difficult to believe that
the serang had been able to accom-
plish what O'Rourke was inclined 10
credit him with; that he, the wielder
of the kris, the murderer of Quick,
thrown off his feet by the Irishman's
attack, had deliberately involved his
fellows with him in his fall and profit.
ed by the confusion to Stay one upon
whom he could throw the blame for
all that had happened.
~ "NoPSA lAiNClSu In ouh NJ .
grasp. More than once in that brief
debate he was tempted to shoot the
fellow OF suspicion. Yet he held his
hand; he could not be positive. With
every circumstance against him. he
might still be telling the truth. The
whole horrible affair might boil down
to nothing more than an insane crime
of a crazy Malay. one who, as the Sc
rang claimed. had run amok."
He had not made up his mind when
his thoughts were given a new turn
by a new complication, in the shape
of Mrs. Prynne herself. That lady
came up the companion steps with no
apparen. hesitation, no fear or appre'
h%ension; quietly and confidently alert,
on the other hand, she was visibly
armed and prepared against danger in
whatever form she might have to en-
counter it.
GRO BE CoNTINUEDl