New Britain herald. [microfilm reel] (New Britain, Conn.) 1890-1976, 1923-09-07
NOW co on WITH TnE STORY

The name OF the craft was the
charon. The thought chilled him
and dismayed him.
For all his boosted realism. Ned
cornet had never got away from SUI
perstition. Man is still not far dis
fant from the Cave and squatting
Place. and superstition is a specter
from out OF the dead centuries that
haunts all his days The coincidence
that their craft. plying through these
dcnthly waters. should bear such n
name as the Charon suddenly suggest
ed dark possibility to Ned. All at
cnce this man. heretofore so sure. so
elf-sufficient. SO incredulous Of any
thing except his own continued glory
and happiness and life. was face to
face with the first fear--the simple.
primitive fear OF death.
Was that his fate at the journeys
end? Not mere trial, mere hardship
and stress and adventure, but uncom"
promising death! Was that training
camp soon to be reality, as terribly
real as these cold seas and this sky
of stars, instead of mere Pigment of
an old mans childish fancy?
The thought troubled and haunted
him. but 1t proved to be the best
possible influence for the man him
silf. For the first time in his life
Ned Cornet was awake. He had been
dreaming before: for the first time he
had wakened to life. Fear. disaster.
the dreadful omnipotence of fate were
no longer empty words to him: the,
were, stern and immutable reality
He knew what the wolf knows, when
he bowls to the winter moon from the
sIiow-sweptfridge: that he was child
Ia the hands of Powers so vast and
awful that the sublimest human
thought could not even reach to
them. He could see. dimly as yet
but Enthusiastically, the shadow of that
travail that haunts mems days from
the beginning to the end.
J His fathers blood. and in some de-
gree his fathers wisdom, was begin
ming to manifest itself in him. 1t
was only a whispered voice as yet.
wholly to be disregarded in the face
of too great temptation, yet never
theless 1t was the finest and most
hopeful thing in his life. And 1t
came particularly clear one STILL mys-
terious night, shortly after the din
ner hour, as he faced the North from
the deck of the Charon.
The schooner's auxiliary engines
had pumped her through Unimak
Pass by now, the passage between
Unimak and Akun Islands, and nav
she had launched forth into that wide,
western portal of the Arctic-Bering
Sea Still the wonderful succession
OF bright days had endured, no less
than marvellous, along the mist-swept
southern shore OF the peninsula, but
now the brisk, salty wind from the
northwest indicated an impending
weather change. 1t had been re-
clear and MINDLESS day, and
the night had come down. so swiftly
md 80 soon, was of strange and
stirring beauty. The stars had an In
credible luster: the sea itself was Of
an unnamed purple, marvelously
deep--such a color as scientists might
Ind lying beyond the spectrum. And
Ned's eyes, tonight, were dulled by the
affects of strong drink.
For some reason that he himself
could not satisfactorily explain Ned
hadn't partaken of his usual after
aoon whiskies-a land -sodas He simply
wasn't in drinking mood, steadfast-
y refusing to partake. Lenore,
,hough she had never made 1t point
% encourage Ned's drinking habits,
.ould not help but regard the refusal
ID In some way slight to herself,
md was correspondingly downcast
md irritable. Wholly out of sorts,
he had let him go to the deck alone.
Facing over the bow he suddenly
perceived faint silver radiance close
o the horizon. His first impression
vas that the boat had taken a south
asterly course, and this argent CLEAN
vas merely the banner of the rising
noon. Immediately he knew better:
kept by the absolute disruption of
osmic law, the moon could not rise
or at least four hours. He knew
( no coast light anywhere in the
egion, and II was hard to believe
hat he had caught the far-off glim-
Ter of ships light. Seemingly
cch followers of the sea had been
1T far behind them.
But as he watched the light grew. A
lis own pulse quickened. And N
resently radiant streamer burst
.raight upward like rocket, fut-
red a moment, and died away.
strange thrill ana stir moved
trough the intricacy of his nerves
e knew now what this light por-
nded: it was known to every way