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Show gjoxxxxxcoo5 Out of a Shipwrecked 1 Past $ H. M. EGBERT (Copyright, 1915. by W. G. Chapman.)' The cattlemen aboard the big trans-Atlantic trans-Atlantic liner looked with disfavor upon the parties of saloon passengers who come between decks to watch them feed and water the steers. They resented the intrusion, and the evident evi-dent curiosity of these beings from a world wholly alien from their experience. experi-ence. Perhaps it was the look upon aiayne's face that struck the girl who had lingered behind. "You you don't like us to coma here?" she asked timidly. He shrugged his shoulders. "If the eight of our poverty and menial labor affords you satisfaction yes, madam.'' "You speak like a gentleman," said the girl, looking at him curiously. "I used to be one," he answered indifferently. in-differently. She still stood looking at him. He had a refined face, but an embittered expression on It. He was perhaps thirty years of age. She looked at his hands; they were white, but hardened hard-ened by toil. Undoubtedly he had been a gentleman. "It is never too late to change," said the girl softly, placing her hand upon bis sleeve. "Not when the wish remains," he answered. "But when hope is gone " "What then?" she cried, and he saw her face momentarily distorted, as if she remembered some terrible misfortune. "It would surprise you," he said, "If I were to tell you that I havo She Was Clinging to the Keel of an Upturned Boat. chosen this life deliberately. Yet such Is the case. I used to be quite a different dif-ferent sort of man. In fact, I was what is called a 'college man,' I believe, be-lieve, though the words awaken no pride in me now. Yes, I chose deliberately de-liberately to herd with men of this stamp, because here alone I find frankness, loyalty, friendship. I " He broke off suddenly and looked moodily at her. "Tell me," the girl whispered. "He was my friend, and she well, we had known each other all our lives and were engaged to be married. I came home unexpectedly and found that he had betrayed me. That is all. It happened five years ago. But about the same time my trustee robbed me bt my fortune. That was why she was false If it had been love for him I could have forgotten. So I disappeared from my world and chose this one. Now run away to your friends, little girl, and play," he sneered brutally. He might as well have sneered at one of the patient cattle. "And you think that you are free?" she asked. "You have no sense of law, of citizenship, of public duty?" "Hardly," he said, scoffing. "Yes, we are free equally, you in your gilded gild-ed luxury, and I in my comradeship with: the outcasts of the world." "I free?" she cried, beginning to laugh. lie heard the catch in her throat and his ' eyes softened momentarily. mo-mentarily. "Listen, then. We shall never meet again, and I can tell you what I cannot tell anybody else. My father Is many times a millionaire." "Yes, that can be seen," he said, looking at her dresB, her jewels. He saw the flush creep up under her akin. His penetrating glance seemed to dissect her "You know the lives of us women?" she asked. "Or you have read -of them, at any rate. And what one reads is underestimated, not exaggerated. exag-gerated. I have never had a moment's freedom in my life, not since I was a little girl, playing with my dolls. "At school I was smothered with attentions. at-tentions. At home I was suffocated with nurses, companions I hated, chosen for their wealth and rank. Later I was decked out, sent to a finishing school, all my nature cramped and hardened by luxury and convention. And I always longed fur my emancipation. "Do you know what we women have to look forward to? Marriage That is all. And we are not free to choose My father is not unkind to me, but he understands nothing. It is not he who traded me, but convention again It is the pressure of circumstances, of environment, more terrible than physical force So I am traded for the coronet of a viscount. That is why I am going to England to marry him. And if I could be a man and free as you are free, then only could I begin to live. Good-by." She turned away hurriedly and he saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. He made no effort to follow her, but stood watching her, like a man in a dream. He dreamed of her during the long night, when the cattle ship pitched and tossed heavily in the trough of the channel, and the blinding fog came down. The timbers of the old ship groaned as the waves buffeted her. At his post the captain strained to catch sight of the Foreland lights. Suddenly, with a crash that sent every timber jarring, the liner stopped, shivered, and keeled over. The shock sent the cattlemen flying from their bunks. They rushed out into the open space between the pens From the upper deck came cries and the sound of seamen running. Women Wom-en began to scream. Throueh the haze loomed up the squat form of a collier. There was no possibility of mistaking mistak-ing what had happened. The liner, rushing at full speed through the fog, had struck the collier, not with her bow, but amidships, a glancing blow which had ripped her outer sheath nearly halfway from the bow. She was keeling lower she would go under within a few minutes. There were no water-tight partitions on the old ship, and, if there had been, they would have been of little aid in such a situation. After the first confusion the cattlemen cattle-men gathered between decks and waited. Outcasts as these men were, they had the discipline of the sea. The passengers had been assembled. assem-bled. The stewards were running hither and thither with lifebelts. The grimy faces of the stokers appeared above the ladder. The fires had already al-ready been flooded. Fortunately the cattle ship carried few passengers. Even the port boats sufficed to contain them. The collier had backed away and megaphoned through the fog. Order was restored out of chaos. Only, before all could be taken away, the ship keeled over and disappeared dis-appeared in the swirling waters. As she went down the tilting deck did Mayne into the water. The shock of the immersion revived him; he found himself gasping and battling for life in a whirlpool of bellowing cattle cat-tle and floating planks from the pens. He managed to catch one and supported sup-ported himself. Over the invisible water came cries and screams, which gradually grew fainter. He was a vake now. He knew what had occurred. It was strange that at that moment he thought, not of his past love so dishonored, but of the girl he had seen. And, as he pictured her. he saw her face painted upon the drifting haze. Another instant and he was staring into her eyes. She was clinging to the keel of an upturned boat, which had been swept down into the rapids, carrying its Inmates In-mates to destruction in the swamp of the liner. How she had lived through those moments of agony she never knew; she thought afterward it was because Mayne was so near, because there was a life for both of them, to be lived together. He saw her upturned face and swam toward, her. A moment later he was clinging to the boat beside her, supporting her. He climbed upon the keel and pulled her up after him. She sank back into his arms. Day broke and the fog drifted away. Upon the horizon appeared the white sails of a fishing schooner. She was bearing down upon them. The girl lifted her haggard face. "All my past, all I have, my family, my friends were on the ship in the boat that went down," she said. "And my past" he began. "Listen!" he cried fiercely. "I want to live again, a new life, untroubled by any thoughts of the past. I have money in my clothes enough to help me to begin that life. And I want to help you to begin yours." "Ours," she said gravely for one doc not Bpeak lightly In such a mo-meat. mo-meat. "Perhaps, out of our shipwrecked ship-wrecked past a fairer future may arise for each of ua." G 1 y' -.i- 7'.';: y W--'. j; hy-yy- &?y'yyy :yyy'& y yyf-y-. ' ' -i - y :v, - ; - ft vJ,3- - - -J j - - Dt2 In a Samoan Hapdor man warships began a careless browsing brows-ing in the Pacific. The gunboat Adler (Eagle) took possession pos-session of the Solomons on October 30, 1886. A German-English convention in 1899 left Germany in possession only of the two most northerly islands in the group. Of these, Bougainville, the larger, is 125 miles long and between 25 and 50 miles wide. Buka is about 33 miles long and from five to ten miles wide. Together their area is about 4,000 square miles. Have Good Harbors. Both islands have good harbors and both are rich In forests and in excellent excel-lent agricultural soils. In Buka, however, how-ever, there is a lack of water supply, while the larger island is crossed by innumerable streams, with their head waters in the interior mountains. The Germans built a government station here in 1907, and since then have made considerable progress in the task of civilizing the natives, who were employed em-ployed to do all of the improvement work. Up to a few years ago the male portion of the native population scorned all clothing, while the women considered themselves dressed for every occasion when wearing tiny little lit-tle aprons attached to a slender coard around the waist, with, possibly, the addition of some stray tattoo marks and a great sunshade hat made of palm leaves. There was a mere handful of Germans Ger-mans resident In the tiny capital, which was guarded by 50 native police'. The islands are very near to British possessions in, the same group and but a short sail from Australia. The c'imate of the groups is that of possessions of the United States. The German possessions have been, temporarily, tem-porarily, at least, wrested from her. The soils of this island group are luxuriantly lux-uriantly fertile, and copra dried cocoanut co-coanut is produced here in large quantities. Tropical fruits, yams, arrowroot ar-rowroot and other agricultural products prod-ucts are brought forth in abundance. It is, however, as a strategic port of call, an advanced harbor in the Orient, that Germany set her highest value upon these South sea possessions. For a time the Samoan islands were under the control of the British government and German consuls. The control of the islands which existed before the war was effected by a treaty made in isiiit. The total area of the group is about 1.750 square miles, of which the German share is 1,010 square miles. There are eight inhabited islands in the group, with a tot al population popu-lation of 37,000, of which 33,478 live within the confines of the German ishmds. Those figures include only the native population. The number of European Eu-ropean settlers is i'g!igible. The climate of Samoa is found bv , some to border upon perfection as climates go, and by others It is dismissed dis-missed with a vague notation that it is supportable. Perhaps the delightful delight-ful descriptions by Robert Louis Stevenson, Ste-venson, who, on account of lung trouble, took up his permanent res dence there in 1SS6, and who lived and worked eight years arter the doctors hrd given him up, can best be trusted among all others. Germany fouud it difficult to persuade her sons and daughters bent on immigration to settle in the croup. |