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Show PTbyTrom the start . th. imall New J"ey vll-I vll-I straltamouth, in the year I Richard Lindsay, who tells i i:, '.,ory gives an exhibition of ,U markmanshlp before ome b;f, T.n and a atranger, with rl! V they afterward dine at . tavern The conversation 166 on a notorious pirate. :Cr" ship, the Black Panther, Is mo be in the vicinity, '"morning Lindsay, after wild : a -It, is sitting In a blind ! !;. 'three strangers land on the "ach near him. They bury a Jt and then one of them, Bur-T,l Bur-T,l recognized by Lindsay as 5. man he talked with the day h,(ore kills one of his compan-,,, compan-,,, Lindsay's presence Is dls-,..'rpd dls-,..'rpd The third man is Cap- n Barclay of fhe Black Pander Pan-der The three go aboard. Lind-,,'v Lind-,,'v meets there a youth to whom L bears a remarkable resemblance resem-blance Robert McAllister, whom p, relay captured on his way to hii uncle' i plantation In Jamaica. Barclay has sworn to kill the I ider McAllister. Bob is asked to ,ct a 8Dy ,n hls uncle's houa-fcold. houa-fcold. He refuses. CHAPTER III Continued Tire captain gazed at him grimly, you would die first?" The answer came like an echo. "I would die first" There fell silence. Instinctively my (ies sought Barclay's face, and I denied to read there, not only Inflexible Inflex-ible resolve, but something besides resentment, perhaps, at meeting an adversary ad-versary as steadfast as himself, and jet, withal, a reluctance to force a crisis. And when at length he spoke, It was evident that my conjectures Kire correct, for he did what was for dim almost unheard of he chose deliberately de-liberately to repeat himself, and thus to make his meaning crystal clear. "Once again," he said, "I assure you, on m.v honor as a gentleman, that Andrew An-drew McAllister Is unworthy of consideration consid-eration at your hands. For any fate tliat may befall him, he has but himself him-self to blame. You need waste no pity. do sympathy, no act of self-effacement, uiion him. And once more I repeat Unit If you choose to disbelieve me, mid to cast your lot with your uncle, then for you that means but oue thing -death i" As lie finished speaking, I glanced quickly at McAllister, and Instantly liupe died in my heart, for he sat gaz-Ini; gaz-Ini; at the captain without the'tremor it un eyelid, and with an air of half-innsed half-innsed contempt, as If this pirate, .f lespite his power and force of char- Vtcr, were far removed from the other's world. He did Dot even deign to sneak; a faint, half-tolerant shake of his head was his only reply. The result was immediate, for he wuld not, I think, have chosen surer means to antagonize and enrage the c;it aiu. Like a flash Barclay was on Ms feet, his face livid with wrath, ami turning to me, he uttered the curt craunnnd. "do on deck !" I rose slowly to my feet; then 1'iiused, irresolute, striving desperately to think of some expedient by which I mlslit aid McAllister. Yet the case itemed hopeless. We were two strip-linss strip-linss without weapons; our captors "'re picked fighting men, In the prime of lif. and not merely Immensely our winTlors In strength, but slayers by prufession, and armed to the teeth. Awln my eyes sought McAllister's, "l he seemed Instantly to divine Mint was passing in my mind, for "a'e more lie shook his head, and 'itli hl3 hand made the slightest pos-il'le pos-il'le gesture toward the eompanion-"''. eompanion-"''. There was no time for more, for m" Interchange, brief as it was, had M escaped the captain. His face, as glared at me, was like a storm 'l"ud, nnd I perceived that his hnnd '""I dropped, threateningly, below the '"el of the table. He snarled, rather th;,n spoke the words, "On deck !" Nlmlly against my will, therefore, I Jlehleil, and reluctantly ascended the c""ipi,nion. step by step.- But at the '"''' "'""'d b.v an Impulse that I could 1,1,1 resist, I turned and cast one final wuce below. In these few moments I;1 "l,of scene hnd changed ; Captain '"'lay had lost no time. The door 1lng forward from the cabin was V". and from my outlook the space ""nl loomed like a dungeon, black " f'sht. Through this door MeAUis-" MeAUis-" was In the act of passing, hut nether of his own free will, or wlieth-r- as It appeared to me, through the ''"'Pulsion of lUirford and the cap-j cap-j could not say. Then, realizing ";" I w.is powerless, I turned once Je and regained the deck. Yet In r '"ment tl;nt I st,,od there, without tl'":',' lu"'n1' or seemed to hoar. seutning sounds of a struggle, and ""e shrill, high-pitched scream, mstant I think my senses ac-rv"y ac-rv"y ''I'ted me. for when I became 'e more conscious of my surround-:s surround-:s St00d -"rirping the after-rail. . fixedly t our fonmlng wake, r, r tlll firt time In my life 1 rvv,'f .'.'':U 1 wns talking aloud to s,,.;'.'' heard no scream." I was r'.'.J,';s" ha,f angrily. "You heard Nothing at nil." CHAPTER IV , . A"ot;ier Man's Shoes I : 1''"ri"y' as 1 stn0(1 gating blankly blank-ly ovor "ie blue waters. T felt a V1v. 'Ton m" arm. and whoelih.: rr si,r- 1 fv,in.l r.iirfor.l at iv W' 'tantly I searched his :v,l"r SnP"" oi what had hap-w hap-w '."" ,0 ,,mt his expression ,s 'H'Tutablo aa aver. t U- By ELLERY H. CLARK' Copyright 19; by Bobba-MerrlU Co. WMD Srvic most with his first words I was to learn the truth, and, as he spoke, perceived, further, that Barclay himself him-self had also come on deck, and stood by the weather-rail nonchalantly surveying sur-veying the receding land. "The captain wishes speech with you," said Kurford, and added, not unkindly, "Do what he asks, no matter mat-ter what it Is. I know hlra well; I know his moods. If you cross him now, you die before an hour is past. And" he added significantly, "you will not die as speedily as the other lad ; you will pray for death a score of times before it comes to you." I felt my heart sink at his words. "Then McAllister" I cried, and did not complete the question. His nod was sufficient answer, and without more words he led the way. We were standing out to sea, and the schooner, well heeled over, was bowling bowl-ing along at a great rate. The captain, cap-tain, back to us, stood leaning against the rail, gazing out at the broad expanse ex-panse of sea and sky. He turned at our approach, with one gesture dismissed dis-missed Burford, and with another bade me take my place at his side. "You are learning," he said, "some- "The Captain Wishes Speech With You." thing of Fate's revenges; something of the tangled threads that make up the pattern of life. Doubtless you consider con-sider a man's life of great Importance a sacred thing. Perhaps It Is In your village ; but here" and he Indicated with a sweep of his hand the ship and the sea and the sky "a man's life is no more precious than a flea's. Take yourself. You are nothing to me less than nothing. Save for a chance resemblance, you would this Instant be snugly tucked away on the sand spit yonder, with a great hole In your forehead, and sand for your blanket, and the ooze of the tide for your bed ; sleeping for all eternity " In spite of myself, I shuddered at the picture, for though no scholar, this swaggering captain had a marvelous knack of using words. Presently he continued: "And young McAllister was nothing to me. You have the proof of that. And you see what happens hap-pens to stubborn young men. I am warning you. You doubtless think there Is right In the world and wrong In the world, and that you must do what Is right. But I tell you that on this schooner there Is no right or wrong except my word. What I wish Is right ; what I do not wish Is wrong. You are not, I think, an over-bright young man, but I hope that at least you can see that." Now I did not take this conclusion kindly, for though the world In general gen-eral has, I fear, seemed to share that Idea of my abilities which the captain had Just expressed, I myself have always al-ways felt that I was brighter than supposed, barring perhaps, as I admit, n certain slowness at times In grasp ing a situation quickly. Yet mindful of" what Burford had said to me, I kept my temper and answered quietly enough, "Yes. I understand thst." He looked at me with that curious gleam In his eyes which was often there, and which I hated a kind of umused, contemptuous glance that made you foel his delight in his cleverness clever-ness and his scorn for your stupidity and then all at once he said: "Well. Mr. McAllister" He stopped with these words, as If to see If he could catch me napping, but for once he did not. for though I own that for an Instant I thought he bad made a slip, the next second I perceived first that he was too clever a man to do that, and secondly that if it was not a slip there was a purpose pur-pose in it. And whet that purpose was it was not hard to guess. And so. to surprise Ii t in. and to show him that he bad underrated me. I answered roundly, as he paused: "Yes. Certain, that's my iiaine." And indeed he was surprised. At first I think he could not believe the quickness 1 had shown, but freeiit'y. perhaps from a smile which I could 1 not rot rain, he saw that I i::d-rs:. '! him. for he latishr.l and fotcv.e,! mo a clap on the ha. k. cry.ng. "Wei:, well. I thought you were simp'e. an ! bore I find tlu.t you are deep and s lb tl,. ves. a d d dangerous r.'gr.e. Now. a!il'-"i tMs should not havo pleased me, I own that It did, and after a little he went on, "Now then, as man to man" and I own that I liked this too "I am going to tell you my whole plan. There Is that blackhearted black-hearted Andrew McAllister, rich and prosperous with the treasure that was half mine and what has he done? He has bought a great plantation on the southern coast of Jamaica, and there he is raising sugar cane and growing richer still. Where does his labor come from? Why, it's slave labor, of course. And he doesn't have to buy his slaves from others; he has a ship that does nothing but trade, back and forth, in a kind of circle, and every port she touches makes him richer. Look now, while I make It plain to you. Two vessels he has ; one a brig-antine, brig-antine, the Shark, that sails the Caribbean, Carib-bean, a pirate out and out. But it's the other that's his steady, respectable trader; she's the bark Ashantee. That bark he loads In Jamaica with sugar and molasses, and up the coast she goes to New England. What happens to that sugar and molasses? It's made into rum the best New England rum. And where does that rum go? It goes out to Bonny and Calabar. And what is loaded In exchange for that rum? Some gold and some ivory, but mostly niggers prime niggers, worth fifty pounds a head; and back comes the bark to Jamaica, and the slaves are landed at Andrew McAllister's plantation, and they raise more sugar and molasses, and that makes more rum, that brings more slaves to Jamaica Ja-maica again. Around and around in a circle ; can you improve on that for a damnable way of getting rich? Isn't that a game to make the devil rub his handsi and laugh?" I could only nod assent. And I could not help thinking what my father would say If he could hear of this wicked trade. Of the horrors of the "middle passage" I had heard him tell, of the dead bodies flung over to the sharks ; aye, and sometimes, when winds baffled and food and water ran low, of live men hurled to their deaths under the shadow of the midnight sky, with no one to know of their murder and avenge It. Surely, as the captain said, this sailing in an evil circle was a game to make the devil laugh. So vividly, Indeed, did he present the picture to my mind, that I must own that for the moment I did not see the incongruous side of a man of his profession thus condemning McAllister; McAllis-ter; for It was a case of the pot calling call-ing the kettle black, and while the captain's fine show of Indignation would have come Well enough from the mouth of another, It fell oddly from the Hps of a professed pirate, a murderer, mur-derer, and a plunderer of the seas. Yet, as I have said before and as I may say again, Capt. Francis Barclay was the strangest mixture of a man I have ever known at one and the same time, though it sounds, and doubtless is, incredible, a rascal and a gentleman, gentle-man, a murderer and a philosopher, a cruel sneering brute and a man who could yet charm you, with his subtle speech, Into thinking that black was white. And so now, as doubtless he intended, he managed to fill me with resentment against Andrew McAllister and his nefarious trade. Undoubtedly, Indeed, he could see by my face, which I am told too openly reveals my emotions, that I was Justly Indignant, for he continued, "And who runs his plantation for- him? That bald-headed spawn of Satan, Jack Shively, his precious mate. Which is the worse of the two, you ask me" though I had not asked him at all, and had not studied hard enough at' school to appreciate his rhetorical skill "Well, that's hard to say. But I'd answer an-swer you this way. Give me McAllister McAllis-ter for wholesale villainy, for working out schemes on a big scale. But for downright petty cruelty there's no one to beat Shively. I've seen him torture a prisoner to death, nnd laugh while he was doing It. And he's the man, if you can imagine it, who has full charge of McAllister's great plantation. planta-tion. Why. boy, it's a very kingdom of the damned. There's only one rule the rule of the whip and whether he has cause for it or not, whenever the whim takes him he singles out a slave and has him or her, h treats the women the same as the men lashed to a tree, and flogs away till the poor nigger's back streams blood. Whether they die or not he doesn't care, so long as he has his fun. He's a coward at heart; he wouldn't meet you la a fair fight; but he's brave as a lion with those poor defenseless blacks. A missionary mis-sionary went to Shively once, and begged him to treat the slaves with more consideration, to give them some time to learn religion, some hours for recreation and play. And what was Shively's answer? That he had his master's Interests to look out for, that religion and recreation paid no dividends, divi-dends, that wiser men than he had figured It out, and that It was cheaper in the end to drive slaves to death in a few years and then fill their places with new ones than to let them live out their allotted span In health and some kind of happiness. Treats them like brutes, you may say. Why, the meanest brute that ever skulked and cowered In the depths of the Jungle is a king beside those poor black slaves." Certainly, as he put the matter, I felt a hearty hatred for both these men the plot-making master and the brutal mate and the captain, doubtless doubt-less perceiving the impression he had made, hastened to drive it home. "Well, enough of Shively," he continued. con-tinued. "Let me tell you something more about McAllister. You Imagine, of course, that he lives on his plantation. planta-tion. But he doesn't His conscience Is too black for that. He's picked the spot where he lives on purpose. The plantation borders on a beautiful river, riv-er, with a narrow outlet to the sea. but a little ways Inland the river broadens into a kind of lagoon, and in the middle of It Is an Island, and on the island McAllister has built his house, or, as you might almost say i his fort, for that's what it really Is. He has a garrison, I understand, a dozen men, good fighters, and there the old fox lives, never stirring from his den unless he has to. And there he hoards and plans and adds to his treasure. A coward, a skulker " and he made a gesture of contempt too deep for words. There fell silence, while he gazed over the rail Into the sunshine with a fierce and eager gleam In his eyes. It was some time before he turned to me again. "I called you McAllister Just now," he said, "and you understood my reason. That young man was true to his uncle; you cannot blame him; he did not know what Andrew McAllister McAllis-ter really is. And so you become Robert McAllister. We have the chestr with his clothing and all his effects; we have the letters from his uncle ; we are bound to make a success of our plan. No one on the island has ever seen you; no one had ever seen him; and the resemblance between you Is so strong that If we could bring back-young, back-young, McAllister from the dead, and dress you alike, It would take a wise man to tell you apart. I've given you the outline of the scheme ; now for the details. I land you near his home; you make your way to that cursed bald-headed mate, and make yourself known, and he brings you to the island. is-land. All you have to do Is to play the dutiful nephew, to get McAllister's confidence, to find out all you can about the Island and its garrison, to find out, above all, where he keeps his treasure. Then, in a fortnight, you will meet me again, and we shall talk things over. What will happen next depends on what you have learned. It may be better to storm the Island, or It may be that you will have to kill him yourself. But no" he broke off suddenly, and much to my relief "that wouldn't do unless It was the only wayl I want to have his skinny throat, between my hands. But we can settle that later. There's only one thing to do now, and thst is for you to give me your solemn word of honor that you will be faithful to me, and that you will undertake this venture ven-ture as I suggest. If you refuse" ho turned squarely toward me. and his tone was bard ns steel "then much as I regret it, I'll have you stripped and tied to the foremast before five minutes are gone, and I'll rouse my gentle darlings from their d d drunken drunk-en sleep and have them pelt you with empty rum bottles till they've let out every drop of blood In your veins. So mnke your choice, once and for nil. Will you die like a dog or live like t man?" (TO BE CONTINUED.) |