The Washington times., 1913-02-15

,hoIlinS carried MN OH 10 New DC"
ford. where they superintended the
Quitting of Peters yacht. the Adven
turess. Beyond drawing heavily on hi!
bank and sending Drummond briei
note, Whitaker failed to renew con-
muncation with his home. He sank into
a state of semi-apathetic content; he
| thought little of anything, beyond tn.
business of the moment: the prepara'
tions for what he was pleased to terri
his funeral cruise absorbed him to the
on the behalf of his adventitious wife
He could not see that his disappearance
had caused the least ripple on the sur
fase of the life of New York; the news
papers, at all events, sighted the cir
cumstance unanimously. to his entire
Within the week the Adventures
sailed.
She was five months out of port be-
fore Whitaker began to be conscious
that he was truly aecursed. There came
gradual thickening of the shadows
that threatened to eclipse his existence.
And then, one day as they dined with
the lonely trader of an isolated station
in the D'EntrecasteauX Islands, he fell
from his chair as If pole-axed. He re-
with the chill of the wind that's famed
by the wings of death. 1t was impos-
sible to move him. The agonies of the
damned were his when. with exquisite
gentleness. they lifted him to a bed.
Stark sailed in the Adventures be-
fore sundown Of the same day. purpos-
ing to fetch a surgeon from Port
Moresby. Whitaker said a last fare
well to his friend. knowing in his soul
that they would never meet again. Then
he composed himself to die quietly
But the following morning brought a
island. and with 1t, in the estate of
supercargo, crapulous Scotch gentle
man who had been a famous specialist
of London before drink laid him by the
heels. He performed heroic operation
upon Whitaker within an hour, an
nounced by nightfall that the patient
would recover, and the next day sailed
with his ship to end his days in some
abandoned Australian boozing-ken-as
Whitaker learned in Sydney some six
mcnths later.
In the same place and at the same
time he received his first authentic
news of the fate Of the Adventures
The yacht had struck an uncharted
reef, in heavy weather, and had foun-
dered almost Immediately. OF her en-
tire company. single deck-hand man.
aged to cling TO life-raft until picked
up. week after the wreck, by a tramp
steamship. on whose decks he gasped
out his news and his life in the same
b:eaths.
Whitaker hunted up an account of the
y
per. He read that the owner. Peter
Stark, esq. and his guest. III. NJ. Whit
aker. ESQ.,. both Of New York, had gone
down with the vessel. There WAS also
a cable dispatch from New York de-
failing Peter Stark's social ard fnan-
cial prominence--eviden:c that the news
had been cabled home. To all who
knew Whitaker he was as dead as Peter
Stark.
Sardonic irony of circumstance, that
had robbed the sound man of life and
bestowed life upon the moribund. /.
drug upon Whitaker's temper. until
he was raving drunk with the black
draft of mutiny against the dictates
Of an Omni2ottcnce capable of such
hideous mockeries OF justice The
iron bit deep into his soul and left
ccrrosion there.
There is a world outside the one you
To which for curiousness ell can't
compare:
II is the place where willful Musings
As we can testify. for we are there.
Kipling's lines buzzed through his
head more than once in the course
OF the next few years. for he was
there" They were years Of such
Vagabondage as only the South Seas
countenance: neither unhappy nor
very strenuous. not yet Scared by
poverty Whitaker had between four
and five thousand dollars in travellers
checks. which he had no trouble in
converting into cash, while in Sydney
Memory of the wreck Of the Adven-
turess was already fading from the
Australian mind; no one dreamed Of
challenging the signature of man
seven months dead. And as certainly
and as quietly as the memory. Whita-
ker faded away. Hugh Mor:en took
his place, and sydney knew him no
more. nor did any other place wherein
he had answered to his rightful name.
The money stuck by him handsome
". Thanks 10 strong constitution
in tough body (now that its ma
liGnant demon was cxercised). he
found it easy to pick up living by
ore means or another. Indeed he
played many parts in as many fields
before Joining hands with a youn,
English man he had grown to like,
and snte ring upon What seemed a
forlorn bid for fortune. Thereafter
he prospered amazingly.
In those days his anomalous position
~ the world troubled him very little.
lie was Willful Missing and a willing.
The new life intrigued him amazingly;
he lived IN open air. In virgin country:
a fortune by main strength
from the reluctant grasp of Nature; he
was one Of the first two men to find
and mine gold in the owen Stanley
Now that Peter Stark was dead the
ties Of interest and affection binding
him TO America were both few and
slender His wife was too abstract a
too Vs"re p shadow in his
to obtrIlde often upon his rev.
cries. Indeed. as time went on he found
il anything but easy 10 recall much
about the physical appearance of the
woman he had married; he remembered
chiefly her eyes: she moved mistily
across the stage of a single scene in his
:istory. self-conscious, unhappy child
sh phantasm.
Even the consideration that. fortified
by the report of his death. she might
have married again. failed to disturb
ither his slumbers or his digestion. lf
that had happened, he had no objection;