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Show ? jfhor of The Carpe tfi-oniDadacbfljr The Place Honeymoons, efc. IA I' ' BRIGHT 0Y TJi BOWJ-TfERRILL CQnPAtiY fjj SYNOPSIS. 3 i.rion an American adventurer. ,,,'r ;v, hi" servant, with a cased pnr- i-J t ,' known up and down the Ir-Bt- Alxs "parrot & Co., travel alonB the nl. i"'?l, .he landing, bound for Rangoon - fsr ?, . draft for 300.0H0 rupees. Elsa IS s :J cash Amerlcan elrl tourist, sees :!Z m come aboard the boat at "lie iCa, '"'Z and amazed at his likeness to fei si &5rAnd,cate and ster- CHAPTER III Continued. jrf 'Well, he wasn't above having his ;E revenge. Ha made the syndicate toM up there. They wired asking ti;ybe couldn't come on to Rangoon. k'- Aid very frankly he gave his reasons. or" They came up on one boat and left on snother. They weren't very pleasant, eCtiS -Jt they bou&ht biS 0il lands' He le'ud ("me aboard last night with a check :m ! t,enty thousand Punds and two tir5 rjpee3 in his pocket The two rupees rf! n're all he had In this world at the they wrote him the check. Arabian night; what?" A... am ga(j. i like pluck; 1 like en-'tr en-'tr France; I like to see the lone man I,t: iin against odds. Tell me, is he go-il go-il i back to America?" fw! tliere's tne weak Part ,n tne ' up- (lain." The purser looked diffidently $ it tie deck floor. It would have been y the easy enough to discuss the Warring- :on of yesterday, but the Warrington of this morning was backed by twenty thousand good English sovereigns; ? le was a different individual. "He ?ara says he doesn't know what his plans sill be. Who knows? Perhaps some o:e ran away with his best girl. I've .sed frown lots of them to wind up out ny here on that account." "When do we reach Prome?" "About six," understanding that the . de- Warrington Incident was closed. "It Isa't worth while going ashore, though, i- Nothing to see at night." "1 have no inclination to leave the beat until we reach Rangoon." v She met Warrington at luncheon, i:d she greeted him amiably. To her Eicd there was something pitiful In iLe way he had tried to improve bis condition. So long as she lived, no latter whom she might marry, she was convinced that never would the thought of this man fade completely ) from her memory. Neither the amaz-j amaz-j icg likeness nor the romantic back-round back-round had anything to do with this conviction. It was the man's utter loneliness. "1 have been waiting for Parrot & s Co. all the morning," she said. Til show him to you right after s luncheon. It wasn't that I had forgotten." forgot-ten." J) Rajah took the center of the stage; ud even the colonel forgot his liver " long enough to chuckle when the bird turned somersaults through the steel koop. Elsa was delighted. She knelt f md offered him her slim white finger. Rajah eyed it with his head cocked at one side He turned insolently and entered en-tered his cage. Since he never saw i Anger without flying at it in a rage, " was the politest thing he had ever done. "Isn't he a sassy little beggar?" . aughed the owner. "That's the way; "is hand, or claw, rather, against all "a world. I've tad him half a dozen i rs, and he hales me just as thoroughly thor-oughly now as he did when I picked up while I was at Jaipur." "Have you carried him about all this 1 "Be?" demanded the colonel. "He was one of the two friends I ; Hone of the two I trusted," quietly, th a look which rather disconcerted Anglo-Indian "By the actions of him 1 should say he &s your bitterest enemy." He ia; yet I call him friend. There's Peculiar thing about friendship," aid the kneeling man. "We make a our friend; we take him on trust, "jukly an(1 ioyally. we gjve him the wst we have in us; but we never "a"? know. Rajah is frankly my emy, and that's why I love him and t him. 1 should have preferred a JE; but one takes what one can. Be-Ihn8 Be-Ihn8 ' ' '" Warl"ington paused, rust the perch between the bars, and Sot up. "Jah, jah, jah! Jah-jah-ja-a-ah!" e bird shrilled. Oh what a funny little bird!" cried laughing. "What does he say?" th. h6!,0'1611 wondered. It sound like tiell-gong you hear in the Shwe son pagoda in Rangoon. He picked ' UP himself." Jhe clonel returned to his elderly aepflgT8 and becarae absorbed in his 5 limes if the girl wanted to pick "e "ff raff to talk to, that was her . affair. Americans were Impossible, anyhow. any-how. "How long have you been in the Orient?" Elsa asked. "Ten years," he answered gravely. "That is a long time." "Sometimes it was like eternity." "I have heard from the purser of your good luck." "Oh!" lie stooped again and locked the door of Rajah's cage. "I dare say a good many people will hear of it." "It was splendid. I love to read stories like that, but I'd rather hear them told first-hand." Elsa was not romantic in the sense that she saw heroes where there were only ordinary men; it was the obscure ob-scure and unknown hero who appealed to her: such a one as this man might be. "Oh, there was nothing splendid about the thing. I simply hung on." Then a thought struck him. "You are traveling alone?" "With a companion." A peculiar question, she thought "It is not wise," he commented. "My father was a soldier," she replied. re-plied. "It isn't a question of bravery," he explained, a bit of color charging under un-der his skin. "This world is not like your world. Women over here. . . . Oh, I've lost the art of saying things clearly." He pulled at his beard em-barrassedly. em-barrassedly. "Are you warning me against yourself?" your-self?" "Why not? Tv.enty thousand pounds do not change a man; they merely change the public's opinion of him. For all you know, I may be the greatest great-est rascal unhanged." "But you are not." He recognized that it was not a query; and a pleasurable thrill ran over him. Had there been the least touch of condescension in her manner he would have gone deep into his shell. "No; there are worse men In this world than I. But we are getting away from the point, of women traveling alone in the East Oh, 1 know you can protect yourself to a certain extent. ex-tent. But everywhere, on boats, In the hotels, on the streets, are men who have discarded all the laws of convention, of the social contract. And they have the keen eye of the kite and the vulture." To Elsa this Interest in her welfare was very diverting. "In other words, they can quickly discover the young woman who goes about unprotected? Don't you think that the trend of the conversation has taken rather a remarkable re-markable turn, not as impersonal as It should be?" "I beg your pardon! Shall I go?" "No. I want you to tell me some stories." She laughed. "Don't worry about me, Mr. Warrington. I have gone my way alone since I was sixteen. six-teen. I have traveled all over this wicked world with nobody but the woman who was once my nurse. Now, tell me something of your adventures Ten years in this land must mean something. I am always hunting for Harun-al-Raschid, or Sindbad, or some one who has done something out of . the ordinary." He Inclined against the rail and stared down at the muddy water. "Ad-' "Ad-' venture?" He frowned a little "I'm afraid mine wouldn't read like adventures. adven-tures. There's no glory in being a stevedore on the docks at Hongkong, a stoker on a tramp steamer between Singapore and the Andaman islands. What haven't I been in these ten years?" with a shrug. "Can you fancy me a deck-steward on r ?. & O. boat, tucking old ladies in their chairs, staggering stag-gering about with a tray of broth-bowls, broth-bowls, helping the unsteady to their staterooms, and touching my cap at the end of the voyage for a few shillings shill-ings in tips?" "Tell me more." He looked into ber beautiful face, animated by genuine interest, and wondered if all men were willing to obey her. "It always interests me to hear from the man's own lips how he overcame obstacles." "Sometimes I didn't overcome them. I ran away. After all, the strike in oil was a fluke." "I don't think so But go on," she prompted "Well, I have been manager of a cocoanut plantation in Penang; I've helped lay tracks in Upper India; had a hand in some bridges; sold patent medicines; worked in a ruby mine; been a haberdasher in the Whiteaway. Laidlaw shop in Bombay; cut wood in the teak forests; helped exterminate the plague at Chitor and Udaipur; and never saved a penny. I never had an adventure in all my life." "Why, your wanderings were adventures," ad-ventures," she insisted. "Think of the things you could tell!" "And never will," a smile breaking over his face. How like Arthur's that smile was! thought the girl. "Romantic persons never have any adventures. It is to the prosaic these things fall. Because of their nearness you lose their values." "There is some difference between romance and adventure. Romance is what you look forward to; adventure is something you look back upon. But I always supposed adventure was the finding of treasures, on land and on sea; of filibustering; of fighting with sabers and pistols, and all that rigmarole. rigma-role. I can't quite lift my imagination up to the height of calling my six months' shovel-engineering on the Galle an adventure. It was brutal hard work; and many times 1 wanted to jump over. The Lascars often got out of trouble that way." "It all depends upon how we look at things." She touched the parrot cage with her foot, and Rajah hissed. "What would you say if I told you that 1 was unconventional enough to ask the purser pur-ser to introduce you?" The amazement in his face was answer an-swer enough. "Don't you suppose," she went on, "the picture you presented, standlDg on that ledge, the red light of the torch on your face, the bird cage In your hand don't you suppose you roused my sense of the romantic to the highest pitch? Parrot & Co.!" with a wave of her hands. She was laughing at him. It could not be otherwise. It made him at once sad and angry. "Romance! I hate the word. I again affirm that young women should not travel alone. They think every bit of tinsel is gold, every bit of colored glass, ruby. Romance, Ro-mance, adventure! Bah! So much twaddle has been written about the East that cads and scoundrels are mistaken mis-taken for Galahads and D'Artagnans. Few men remain In this country who can with honor leave it Who knows what manner of man I am?" He picked up the parrot cage and strode away. "Jah. jah!" began the bird. Not all the diplomacy which worldly-wise worldly-wise men have at their disposal could have drawn this girl's interest more surely than the abrupt, rude manner of his departure. CHAPTER IV. Two Days of Paradise. At first Elsa did not know whether she was annoyed or amused. The man's action was absurd, or would have been in any other man. His advice ad-vice to her to go home was downright impudence; and yet the sight of the parrot cage dangling at his side made it impossible for her to take lasting offense. Once upon a time there had been a little boy who played in her garden. When he was cross he would take his playthings and go home. The boy might easily have been this man Warrington, grown up. Of course he would come and apologize apolo-gize to her for his rudeness. Perhaps he had resented ber curiosity; perhaps her questions had been pressed too hard; and perhaps he had suddenly doubted her genuine interest At any rate it was a novel experience. And that bewildering likeness! She returned to her chair and opened the book again. And as she read her wonder grew. The diction was exquisite; ex-quisite; there was style; but now as she read there was lacking the one thing that stood for life blood. It did not pulsate In the veins of these people. Until now she had not recognized recog-nized this fact, and she was half-way through the book. What had happened to her since yesterday? To what cause might be assigned this opposite angle of vision, so clearly defined? The book fell upon her knees and dreamily she watched the perspective open and divaricate. The low banks with their golden haze of dust, the cloudless sky, the sad and lonely white pagodas, charmed her; and the languor lan-guor of the East crept stealthily into her northern blood. She was not conscious con-scious of the subtle change; she only knew that the world of yesterday was unlike that of today. Warrington, after depositing Rajah in the stateroom, sought the bench on the stern deck. He filled his cutty with purser-loaned tobacco and roundly damned himself as a blockhead. He had forgotten all the niceties of civilization; civi-lization; he no longer knew how to behave. be-have. The first young woman in all these years who had treated him aB an equal, and he had straightway proceeded proceed-ed to' lecture her upon the evils of traveling alone in the Orient! And yet he had told her the truth. It was not right that a young and attractive at-tractive woman should wander about in the East, unattended save by a middle-aged companion. It would provoke pro-voke the devil in men who were not wholly bad. Women had the fallible idea that tbey could read human nature, na-ture, and never found out their mistake mis-take until after they were married. He knew her kind. If she wanted to walk through the bazaars in the eve ning she would do bo. If a man followed fol-lowed her she would Ignore the fact. If he caught up with her and spoke she would continue on as if she had not heard. If a man touched her she would rely upon the fire of her eyes. She would never call out for help. Some women were Just that silly. He bit hard upon the stem of his pipe. What was all this to him? Why should he bother bis head about a woman he bad known but a few hours? Ah, why lie to himself? He knew what Elsa, usually quick and receptive, did not know, that he was not afraid of her, but terribly afraid of himself For things ripen quickly in the East, men and women, souls and deeds. And he was something like the pariah dog; spoken kindly to, It attached itself Immediately Im-mediately and enduringly. He struck the cutty against his boot heel. Why not? It would be only for two days. At Rangoon their paths would separate; he would never see her again. He got up. He would go to her at once and apologize. And thus he surrendered to the very devil he had but a moment gone so vigorously vigor-ously discountenanced. He found her asleep in her chair. The devil which had brought him to her side was thrust back. Why, she was nothing more than a beautiful child! A great yearning to brother her came into his heart .He did not disturb her, but waited until five, that grave and sober hour, when kings and clerks stop work for no logical reason whatever tea. She opened her eyes and saw him watching her. He rose quickly. "I was very rude a little while ago. Will you accept my apologies?" "On condition that you will never take your playthings and go home." He laughed engagingly. "You've hit it squarely. It was the act of a petulant petu-lant child." "It did not sound exactly like a man who had stoked six months from Singapore to the Andaman islands. But there is one thing I must understand under-stand before this acquaintance continues. contin-ues. You said, "Who knows what manner of man I am?' Have you ever done anything that would conscientiously conscien-tiously forbid you to speak to a young, unmarried woman?" Take care of herself? He rather believed be-lieved she could. The bluntness of ber question dissipated any doubt that remained. re-mained. "No. I haven't been that kind of a man," simply. "I could look into my mother's eyes without any sense of shame, if that Is what you mean." "That is all I care to know. Your mother is living?" "Yes. But I haven'.t seen her In ten years." His mother! His brows met in a frown. His proud, beautiful mother! Elsa saw the frown and realized that she had approached delicate ground. She stirred her tea and sipped it slowly. "There has been a deal of chatter about shifty, untrustworthy eyes," he sa.'d. "The greatest liars I have ever known could look St. Peter straight and serenely in the eye. It's a matter of steady nerves, nothing more. Somebody Some-body says that so and so is a fact, and we eo on believing it for years, until someone who is not a person but an individual explodes it." "I agree with you. But there Is something we rely upon far more thau either eyes tr ears, instinct. It is that attribute of the animal which civilization has not yet successfully dulled. Women rely upon that more readily than men." "And make more mistakes," with a cynicism he could not conceal. She bad no ready counter for this. "Do you go home from Rangoon, now that you have made your fortune?" "No. I am going to Singapore. I shall make my plans there." Singapore. Elsa stirred uneasily. It would be like having a ghost by her side. She wanted to tell him what had really drawn her Interest But it seemed to her that the moment to do so had passed. "Vultures! How 1 detest them!" She pointed toward a sand bar upon which stood several of these abominable abomi-nable birds and an adjutant, solemn and aloof. "At Lucknow they were red headed. I do not recollect seeing one of them fly. But I admire the kites; they look much like our eagles." "And thus again the eye misleads us. There is nothing that flies so rapacious as the kite." Little by little she drew from him a sketch here, a phase there. She was given glimpses into the life of the East such as no book or guide had ever given; and the boat was circling toward the landing at Prome before they became aware of the time. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |