Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1912-09-06

his arms, received the falling body.
and let it gently to the deck.
But in trice he was alive again to
his own peril. In the twinkling Of an
eye he saw flash of light gliding To-
wards him with resistless impetus.
Intuitively 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 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 off his
| feet. So doing, his fingers slipped on
| the mans greasy skin and he stun.
bled off his balance.
His object however, had been ac.
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
was knocked over and fell atop OF
him
ORourke recovered ana 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 slay 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, a knife buried in his
back.
For thought the tableau held,
there in the pure brilliance of the
| moonlight; the half dozen standing
| figures, ORourke 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 q
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 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 ic who have
avenged. This dog" and with his toe
he stirred the thing at bis feet, ran
amok. Now he is dead"
This was the serang who spoke.
| o Rourke eyed him coldly through
prolonged silence. At length, That
seems quite evident" he admitted
coolly. Pick up that body and throw
it overboard!" he commanded sharply.
In obedience to sign from the Sc.
rang, two of the lascars seized the
body. subsequent splash oversize
told the lrishman that his order had
been carried out. But he heard II
abstractedly. confronted as he was
with problem whose difficulty was
not to be underestimated the problem
embodied in the statuesque, impertr.
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 hesi-
tate. 1t was difficult to believe that
the serang had been able to accom-.
plish what O'Rcurke 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 slay 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 briet
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