The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1912-06-20

oIou8ue al 6OOaIQ tno Rance, put Out
his arms. received the falling body.
and let it gently to the deck.
But in q trice he was alive again to
his own peril. In the twinkling Of an
eye he saw a flash of light gliding to-
wards. him with resistless impetus.
1ntuitively he swung to one side, to
the right, and leapt to his feet. At
that the knife, a 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 systematically
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 off 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, n Of whom, like a nine-pin,
was 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 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 We're 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 a terrible cry of mortal anguish
shrilled loud; and almost at one the
mot 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 b%rilliance 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 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 fell
low. He Strengthened up, facing
O'Rourke without a tremor, his eyes
afire, and wiped the blade of the kris
on his cummerbund.
"Do not shoot, sahib," he said
smoothly in excellent English. do
not shoot, sahib. for it is 1 who have
avenged. This dog" and with his toe
he stirred the thing at his feet ran
amok. Now he is dead"
This vas the serang who spoke.
ORourke eyed him coldly through a
prolonged silence. At length, THAT
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 the
body. A subsequent splash oversize
told the Irishman that 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
embodied in the s%tatuesque, impertur.
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.
stamly, without an instant's respite.
Yet the heartlessl 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 to
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.
The weapon quivered in O'Rourke's
grasp. More than once in that brief
debate he was tempted to shoot the
fellow on 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, n 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 nc
apparent hesitation, no fear or appre
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