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Show "It'll be that black devil in Singapore Singa-pore !" ejaculated the trader, screwing screw-ing up his wizened face and pulling viciously at his beard. "You'll no play the fool, Wallen. It's not fit you are to go. Listen to me, mon : It's a matter mat-ter o' twenty miles across the Island, as ye know well, and no conveyance, ye mind. And it's no regular trader that's called, for none is due she'll have put in for water or the like, and will be sailing again at daybreak." "I can make it by daybreak, Mac-Knight," Mac-Knight," Wallen stated quietly. For a moment MaeKnight stared at Wallen, then his hands dropped from Wallen's shoulders. "Well, go. and be damned to you, then!" he said gruffly, deep down in his throat to hide his emotion and, j turning, stepped abruptly outside. There were not many preparations to make very few. Wallen's worldly possessions were his only through the generosity of the trader. But MaeKnight did not stop at that now, for, five minutes later, as Wallen started for the night's tramp across the Island, a Malay guide, well loaded with supplies, started start-ed with him, while MaeKnight cursed with earnest profanity as they wrung each other's hand. At the edge of the clearing Wallen looked back. On the great bearded figure that leaned against the door frame of the solitary trading station Wallen's eyes lingered. The man waved his hand and shouted : "Mon, ye'll no forget MaeKnight o' Arru ! Ye'll no forget MaeKnight, mon !" And then suddenly a mist dimmed Wallen's eyes. He tried to shout back and could only wave his own hand In return. And then the trees hid the trader from view. Forget MaeKnight ! The man who had nursed him back to life as a mother would nurse her child ! Forget For-get that solitary human outpost of civilization a man with an iron fist, a barbed-wire tongue and a heart as tender as a woman's ! No ; he would not forget MaeKnight! He forced a smile to his lips. One made strange friendships in these far parts of the world, and made them under strange circumstances. The "DIED TODAY, S. WALLEN." Synopsis Stacey Wallen, first mate uf the bark Upolo, In the Java sea, Is the sole survivor of the crew, all victims of yellow fever. ThiK Wah, Chinese sailor, last man to die, tells Wallen he and five other Chinamen were sent aboard by "Drink-House Sam," notorious character of Singapore, to kill him. This recalls to Wallen an incident of his childhood which seems connected con-nected with the confession. CHAPTER I Continued. 2 And Gunga had shaken his head as lie had answered. "I have looked, sahib, and the hand Is whole." Spellbound he had stood there Wn the stairs, a lad of fourteen, and Gunga had lifted the Thing lu his arms and gone away with It ; and the .great figure of his father, dressed in :pajamas, had stood motionless for a long time, then turning had faced the stairs and caught sight of him and suddenly had sent a wild, unnatural laugh ringing through the house. "You there, eh, Stacey?" he had laughed out, as though unmanned. "Well, I'll tell you something now. Never go to the East. Remember that never go to the East." And then he had pulled himself together, to-gether, and his face had set sternly as he had pointed up the stairs. "Go back to your bed I" he had commanded command-ed sharply. "Go back to your bed Instantly In-stantly !" , "Yes," said Wallen aloud to himself. "That's what he said : 'Never go to the East never go to the East.' " But he had come to the East and six Chinamen had shipped aboard the Upolo to kill him. His father had been quite right In telling him not to go to the East. How was It that he had come there? He had run away from that gray house after that night, and he had never heard of his father since. That was in California. He had gone to Frisco, and gone to sea. He had been at sea ever since In all kinds of ships, and he had done pretty well. He had his master's certificate cer-tificate already. But that did not account for his being be-ing here in the Java sea, and for those six Chinamen. He had been fourth officer of the Tokamaru when they had touched at Shanghai a few weeks ago. She was a fine ship, the Tokamaru, Toka-maru, the biggest passenger liner in the fleet only a fourth officer's pay was very small. " He had met Captain Mitchell of the Upolo ashore there, and Captain Mitchell Mit-chell had persuaded him to ship as first mate on the Upolo for double the pay he had been getting. The Upolo, of course, traded through the Java and Banda seas that was what his father had meant by the East touching touch-ing at Shanghai as a port of call in a liner wasn't the same thing. How that sun burned through the awning ! It seemed to stab and drill Into his skull with little shafts of exquisite ex-quisite pain. He could get away from it, of course, by going below Into the cabin, by putting the deck between him and that torturing ball of fire, but In the cabin one couldn't breathe. One couldn't live In the cabin Captain Cap-tain Mitchell was there and Captain Mitchell was dead. Had Captain Mitchell anything to do with those six Chinamen? Or anything any-thing to do with Drink-House Sam in Singapore? And where was it those six Chinamen had joined at Shanghai like himself? If he could remember that he would know whether Captain Mitchell had had a hand in the cursed game. Hadn't Johnson said something about new hands? But then native crews were everlastingly shifting ahout. It was a long way from Singapore to Shanghai. Who was this Drink-House Sam? What was it Ting Wah had said? "Dlink-House Sam him know." "Him know, him know, him know" the words began to run through his mind In a singsong, crazy fashion and then a passionate, merciless anger seized upon him, and the splendid six-foot six-foot bulk of the man heaved up from the chair, and, clenched fist raised, he swayed upon his feet. They had got him! Not the way they had thought to got him but they had got him. And he could not fight there was no one to fight ho could only die like a trapped rat, while this Drink-House Sam luughed a thousand tulles away ! "Him know, him know, him know" the words coursed like fire through his brain. He shouted aloud, and the nails of hl.s fingers In his clenched fist hit into the palm of his hand. He could not choke the life, as bin own went out, from this devil in Singapore that he had never seen he could only die. The uplifted arm, us though too heavy for him, fell to his side, a ghastly ghast-ly whiteness spread over his face, he reeled, clutched at the skylight for support, and slipped prone upon the deck. It was the nausea upon him again. The virulence of the attack passed after a while, but for a long time he lay where he had fallen, weak and exhausted. He was semi-delirious when he stood up again, and hung limply against the skylight. Medicine yes, that was what it meant that stuff there spilled all about. He put some into his mouth. His eyes fastened on the ship's log open In front of him. What kind of a book was that? What was it doing there? Had he been reading? read-ing? He couldn't read when he was sick. It was very strange. No ; he remembered re-membered now, he had been writing in it. Whenever any of the crew died he wrote it down in the book. And now the crew was all dead, and he would be dead, too, very soon ; therefore he should also write his own name down while he could still write. He remembered It all perfectly now that was what the book was for. He lurched forward and picked up the fountain pen from where it had rolled Into a broken package of powdered pow-dered quinine. He lurched again heavily as he leaned over the book. A nervous twitch of his hand gouged the pen-point into the page and left a blot. He shook his head in a gravely puzzled puz-zled way. It was queer that the pen wouldn't write as It had written before ; it seemed to travel all over the page, and he paused, his hand going to his eyes again it was strange that he .couldn't think of his own name! He was first mate, he knew that ; but yes, his name came back to him now. He wrote on laboriously. He finished the entry, dropped the pen, and stared at what he had written, nodding his head. "Died today, S. Wallen, first mate." He read the words aloud, and nodded nod-ded his head again. It was true, quite true. When that damnable sun that was tormenting him through the awning awn-ing was gone, that would be the end of today and he would be dead. His eyes strayed forward along the deck and widened with a dawning fear. What were those shapes there ! He began to mumble to himself, and suddenly shrieked out aloud. It was a horror ship. He shrieked aloud, rushed to the rail, and in the delirium of his mind crouched low to hide himself from this dead throng that raved like demons for medicine, ran screaming forward to where the ship's boat bumped monotonously mo-notonously in its rise and fall against the vesel's hull. He hurled himself over the side, cast the boat loose, and snatching at the oars began to pull like a madman away from the ship. Two hundred yards off he stood up and shook both fists and yelled tauntingly they could not reach him now. But why not? Suppose they should swim after him! He flung himself to the seat again and plied the oars furiously. And then slowly the strokes lessened, les-sened, and presently an oar fell from his grasp, and after that, with a moan, he pitched forward Into the bottom of the boat and all was blackness. CHAPTER II. On the Road to Pobl. "Mon," expostulated the Scotch trader, "but you're fair daft! You're but out of the jaws of death, and I'd no say you're all the way out at that. Bide a bit, there'll be anlther in a month or In two, anyhow." Wallen, standing in the center of the little galvanlzed-iron-roofed storehouse, store-house, his eyes on the native who had entered a moment before, shook his I head. "I've got to get away, MaeKnight," he said earnestly. "There's no use talking about it. What kind of a ship does he say it is?" MaeKnight flung out a question in the native tongue. "lie says it is a big smoke-boat," translated the trader, "which will be by way of saying It's some measly steam coaster that's so small it's no able to occommodate its own cockroaches, cock-roaches, d'ye mind! Mon, pay co attention at-tention to it. What's nnither month or so and you'll be streig then, and ah, mon, but I hate to have ye go!" Wallen, gaunt and thin from his Illness, shook his head decisively again, though the other's words had brought a quick responsive smile to his lips. Six weeks ago a proa from the village vil-lage here bad picked him up at sea and brought him, as It were, to this big-hearted man's door. He owed his life to MaeKnight. "It's no use, MaeKnight," he un-Hwered. un-Hwered. "I've got to go." Crouched Low to Hide Himself. chances were a thousand to one that he and MaeKnight would never meet again but, for all that, it was a friendship that would last. Twenty miles across the island before be-fore daybreak ! Wallen fell to wondering what sort of a ship and, more pertinent still, what sort of a skipper was on the ship that had put into Pobi. He had refused re-fused MacKnight's offer of an advance of money, and he hadn't a penny but he was satisfied that he would not be refused passage in any case. He could work his way. A white man who knew his business was worth his weight in gold on a ship any time in these parts. It was true be wasn't any too fit yet; but he was fit enough for that, fit enough a dull flush came into his face, and his eyes hardened fit enough to get to Singapore Singa-pore somehow ! He had not forgotten that ghastly afternoon in the reek of the pest ship, nor the Chinaman who had died in his arms whispering of Drink-House Sam of Singapore! Forget! He had thought of nothing else ull these weeks, raved of it in his delirium, so MaeKnight had told him. There was one thing dominant In his life now Drink-House Sam of Singapore, the man who had tried so mysteriously to take his life, to stab a! him treacherously, without warning, out of the dark. Singapore! Singapore! It was never out of his mind now. To get there, to force the truth, the motive, the reason, the story behind all this from the human spider that lurked in his web, and then his fists clenched fiercely and then settle with the man hiinseli' ! And that was why he must get to I'ohl before daybreak, before this steamer sailed. Twenty miles across the island before daybreak! (TO Uli .CONTIN UKI). |