The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1916-10-19
CHAPTER Iv-contlnued.

Beyond drawing heavily on his bank
and sending Drummond a brief note,
Whitaker failed to renew communica-
tion with his home. He sank into u
state of semi-apathetic content. The
Adventures was five months out Of
port before he began to be conscious
that he was truly accursed. There
came a 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 IL
poleaxed. He regained consciousness
only to shiver with the chill of the
wind that's fe--.-ed by the wings c.
death. 1t was impossible to move him.
The agonies OF the damned were his
when, with exquisite gentleness, they
lifted him to bed.
Stark sailed in the Adventures be-
fore sundown of the same day, purpos-
ing to fetch a surgeon from Port
Moresby. Whitaker said last farewell
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 q hap
chance trading schooner to the island,
and with it, in the estate of super
cargo, crapuous Scotch gentleman
who had been q famous specialist OF
London before drink laid him by the
heels. He performed heroic Oper-
alton upon Whitaker within an hour
tient 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
several months 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 on an uncharted
reef, In heavy weather, and had foun-
dered almost Immediately. OF her
entire company, a solitary sailor man
aged to cling to life-raft until picked
ZIP, week after the wreck, by tramp
steamship on whose decks he gasped
out his news and his life in the same
breaths.
Whitaker hunted up an account Of
the disaster I'm the files of a local news
paper. He read that the owner, Peter
Stark, Esq, and his guest, 81. M. Whit
aker, Esq, both of New York, had
gone down with the vessel. There
was also cable dispatch from New
York detailing Peter Stark's social
and financial prominence-evidence
that the news had been cabled home.
no all who knew him Whitaker was
as dead as Peter Stark.
'There is a world outside the one you
know
TO which for curiousness Ell can't
compare;
1t is the place where wilful musings
go,
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, nor yet SCARED by the
tooth OF poverty. Whitaker had be-
tween four and FIVE thousand dollars
in travellers checks which he convert
ed into cash while in Sydney. Me-
m0ry OF the wreck Of the Adventures
was already fading from the Australian
mind; no one dreamed of challenging
uhe signature of a man seven months
dead. And as certainly and as quietly
rs the memory, Whitaker faded away ;
Hugh MOrten took his place, and sgd
ney knew him no more. nor did any
other parts wherein he had answered
to his rightful name.
The money stayed by him handsome
'y. Thanks to n strong constitution in
a tough body (uow that It's malignant
demon was exOrcised) ne found it easy
to pick up a living by one means or
another. Indeed. he played many parts
in MS many fields before joining hands
with young Engllshman he had
grown 10 like and entering upon what
seemed q fOrlorn bid for fortune.
Thereafter he prospered amazingly
When at length he did make up his
mind TO 90 home, he was In Melbourne
with Lynch, his partner. Whitaker
passed old friends in the street. They
we're George Presbury and his wife
Anne Forsythe that was-sclf-evldent
tourists, looking the town over between
steamers. Presbury, with no thought
ln his buinptious head of meeting
Hugh Whitnker before the day Of judg-
ment looked at and through him with
out O hint Of recognition but his wife
was another person altogether. Whit
oker could not be blind to the surprise
nnd porlexity that shone I'm her eyes
even THOUGH he pretended to be blind
20 her uncertain nod; long after bis
pack alone Vas visible 90 her he could
ieei her inquirins stare boring into
The lucidoDf made him think; and