Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-07-23
The Dragon
Seal
It's Mystery and It's
Solution.
By cLARIssA r1AcK1E

j and its bit of garden looked like a
i dozen others of its kind which formed
the muddy little Chinese village.
Albert Mason had lived there ever
since the late uprising. He had be-
4 come separated from his tourist party
and, to his own great amazement, dis
covered himself a prisoner on a pirat-
! ical looking craft which fed before the
wind at night and lay hidden in OBJ
i scure harbors during the day.
One day the junk had nosed into the
soft mud of the Chekiang shore, and
4 Mason had been conducted to the lit
tie hut.
Here" said his captor, a bland look
4 ing. cold eyed Celestial, "here you
\ STAY. thief of the world, until you give
\ up the dragon"
.Dragon?' echoed Mason, hearing for
4 the first time the charge against him.
"Do you believe that I've kidnapped
part of your menagerieY
The official shrugged his shoulders,
4 and his companion pulled his sleeve,
4 speaking in Chinese, which of course
4 Mason did not understand:
LET the foreign devil stay here
awhile enjoying his own company.
\ Soon he will disgorge."
"He may escape" said the other eau
4 tiously.
HE will not" said the yillainous
A looking captain. HE cannot go be-
yond the confines Of his w garden.
4 The place is guarded night and day."
So Mason stood on the veranda of
4 the hut and watched the junk go tee
tering away to the dim north whence
they had come.
He never forgot that first evening
when, after he had eaten fish and rice
and drunk tea, he had stepped on the
veranda.
He walked down the path to the
end of the garden and looked at the
moon. Why not escape tonight-or
must he wait until his guards relaxed
. their viligance and then make the eff
fort?
Now or never" he muttered and
pressed against the gate that opened
upon the muddy bank above the rest
less waves.
The gate resisted his efforts-it was
as If some great weight held it closed.
Then came a bloodcurdling growl,
and there stepped into the moonlit
space before the stockade a huge
striped form with eyeballs like fame
and a breath like pestilence.
Mason fled to the other gate, and
again he met the flaming eyes and the
jungle smell.
Men guarded him by day; a man eat
ing tiger and his mate kept watch by
night.
Like a mailman he flew into the
house and locked the doors.
A year and a day passed, and the
captain of the junk came and asked
him If he would give up the dragon.
And Mason, raving with anger, bitterly
refused, although he knew not what
the man meant. And the captain smil-
ed and went away.
And now two years and two days
had passed and the junk had not made
her second visit to the prisoner.
His position was a singular me-. he
was innocent of having broken any
law Of the country-of having commit
ted any crime. In his baggage there
was not a single thing that he had not
brought from home, except a few toys,
grotesque straw animals, gayly color
ed, which he had purchased from an
tnsistent street vender. The very next
day he had been trapped with some
hand luggage and spirited away from
Shanghai.
Its a case Of mistaken identity" he
told himself over and over again al he
restlessly tramped the garden paths,
enyying the freedom of the birds
swinging In space and the fishermen
of shore.
Back home there, In New Hamp-
shire, his wife and children were
mourning him as dead. 1t was an ago
nizing thought.
He went to his worn travelling bags
and listlessly turned over the con-
tents. There was little clothing left.
mat which he wore was In tatters.
Ihere were pictures of his family, his
case of medicines for an emergency,
the straw toys-that was all. His
trunks, If unclaimed, were still in
Shanghai.
The medicines were getting low. He
mad been obliged to take most Of the
qulnlne pills during his frequent at
tacks of chills and fever. There was a
little brandy left-he was saving that
Tor some great emergency-and two
unopened bottles of chloroform. These
We're tightly sealed with wax, and the
contents appeared to be inviolate. He
mad brought it to use when adding to
MS collection of lepidoptera, but his
cases and his butterfly nets and his
pins and other paraphernalia were in
the trunks.
Onloroform, a willing servant, he
unused, his dark thoughts running on,
eliminating himself from his horrid OK
istence.
M a.