Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1914-03-27

tcrested, guess II will be best fee
me to be jogging"
The moon kindly siid away fer
the time being behind clouds, and
no Captain Kettle was able to pur-
sue his passage across the head Of
the valley erect and in the open.
The journey was not comfortable
one. An Icy wind roared down from
the snow-clad peaks Of the Atlas
above, and whistled shrewdly through
the pores Of his loosely-woven jel
lab, and though the gloom Of tho
night was kind enough TO conceal
his whereabouts from an active enc
my, It also failed to show him thv
assures and boulders that lay in dis
path; and as q consequences he
stumbled severely and often.
But the sailor took these minor
troubles philosophically enough,
munched biscuit by way of be-
lated supper, or early breakfast,
washed It down with q nip Of Hor-
ner, and held steadily along his way.
From his last halt he had mapped
the contours of the hills carefully
with his eye, and he now checked
his course by occasional squints at
pocket compass, the card Of which
had been anointed with luminous
paint. Automatically, too, he count
ed his footsteps and estimated the
distance travelled.
1t was no labor to him to do this.
He was one of those rare men to
whom map-making comes by in
stinct.
At the end of another four hours
rapid tramp, and the sailor had
broken into a trot whenever the
ground would permit the pace, he
came to another divide, and looked
over into what was obviously the
valley Bergash had talked about.
The moon had retired by this, but
the clouds had gone, and the sky
was lighted by the wonderful Afri-
can stars, and earth below them
stood out like a dark photograph.
He viewed the valley and its ap-
purtenances with an inquiring eye.
and was intent only on discovering q
scheme that would profit his own
ers and relieve the present necessi-
ties of Miss Emily Dubbs.
The night was dark, and even the
blaze of African starlight has its
limit in illumination. To start with,
Kettle saw no trace of the saints
fortress which he knew ought some
where to overhang the valley From
where he stood, it lay, as a point Of
fact, against black background,
and was invisible even to any one
who knew the countryside.
The two highest ambitions of that
old Berber mercenary who had en-
gineered it were that the place
should be strong, and that it should
not be conspicuous, and to this lat
ter end he had dovetailed his build
ings into the rock and built them of
stones hewn from the rock itself
Captain Kettle walked with head
erect and earns cooked, and worked
his way down-valley along paths that
wound between the high stalks of
the corn. The valley was filled for
the most part with stiffness, but now
and again the faint sounds of NOV
ing things met his ear.
The great black mass of the fort
ress rock loomed higher and bigger
against the Milky Way, and even
Captain Kettles brazen self-assur-
ance began to be streaked with hesi-
tation. This was not some cluster
of tumble-down huts belonging to a
handful of robbers, and perched on
an easy crag that birds nesting
boy could scale. Dislike for Sidi
Mahommed Bergash had made him
believe that the man Dragged when
he told about his ancestral strong
hold, and here when 1t came to the
point, the fellow had told a good
deal less than the truth.
1t was a fortress indeed, and
measuring thoughtfully with his eye,
Kettle reckoned that it might well
be packed with as many as eight
or ten thousand people. The sailor
was a man of brazen courage but
he was no madman; he had ordinary
pTuueuCe, duu uS odW ludl " IudTCl
into this great hive of enemies would
end his usefulness. This must be
case for strategy, and for the
present he must keep clear of the
fortress walls, till he knew more
about the lay of the land and its
| possibilities.
Kettle turned to the left. keeping
close in to the edge of the little
scree of fallen fragments that firing
ed the foot of the rock, and craned
his neck backward so as to take in
every foot of the face,
He did not in the least expect to
find a row of crevices or ledges by
which he could climb to the top; by
this time he was very thoroughly
impressed by the rccuracy with
which the saint and his predecessors
In the saintship had kept up their
defenses; but he had, as / have