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Show I THE IMPOSTOR I By FRANK L. PACKARD j MHllllmillllllll -lllllll HI IIIIIHIIILLMUMUWI IWWIWIII1lll IWIIIIIIMW 1 IIIBII I Mi 111 I ITWlTTWWTTTTlrTnrri II ' t Copy right.) "Oh, will you?" she cried pxciledly. "Tluit will he splrndid ! lint" hesi-tiintly hesi-tiintly "(hat's asking altogether too iiiuch." "It isn't siskin? anything nt all!" he assured her warmly. "The debt will be on niy side." "It's perfectly splendid of yon!" she said 11 nil in enl lmsiastically. "I don't know how to thank you." Her hand, cool and soft, touched his lightly upon the rail. lie clasped it frankly. "Then that sellles Cue bargain, Miss MacKay!" he declared. She withdrew her hand, nodding her head prettily; and then the dark eyes that were smiling into his grew suddenly sud-denly troubled. "I have never heard so strange a thing before as this," she said ; "of you, and and your connection with this ship. And I've been trying to say it, and didn't quite know how about your father's loss I'm so sorry, Mr. Wallen." "Thank yon," he said quietly and turned away for a moment. His father's death ! He had not even yet come to realize it, except in that cold, merciless desire for vengeance upon the man or men who had been guilty of his father's murder. And now her words brought that thought again surging uppermost in his mind. He faced her once more gravely. "Could you tell me anything about him about how It happened, Miss MacKay?" he asked. "Only what Captain Laynton has probably told you already," she answered an-swered slowly. "It was before the ship reached Menado, you know before be-fore I came aboard." "Yes, of course!" said AVallen. ne had shifted his position, leaning now with his back against the rail, and, glancing forward along the deck, his eyes fixed suddenly on the wireless house which was quite dark and with no light showing from within. He jerked his hand toward it. "We've got wireless," he observed. "But I haven't seen any operator at ' least he wasn't at supper." ' "Oh. yes, 'he' was !" she laughed. "I'm the operator." "You what !" He was gazing at '. her in amazement. "Well, no, not really," she amended. "I'm only joking, or, at least, half joking. It's true, though, that any op-orating op-orating that's done I do." "You see, the American law requires ships coming under its jurisdiction to I door and then, wiih a cheery "Good night," she was gone. "l'.y .love!" said Wallen softly to himself. He locked the door, closed the porthole port-hole securely, switched on the light, and. seating himself on the edge of ihe bunk, stared at Ihe floor. 'T.y Jove!" lie repeated softly. Then lugubriously: "And it's only three days to Singapore, and she didn'l say where in Sumatra but that couldn't be more than another three days at the outside." He sat up suddenly and pulled out of his pocket the envelope that Captain Cap-tain Laynton had given hiyi. He had not examined it yet. He tore the envelope en-velope open, shook the contents out onto the bunk, and whistled low, under his breath. Among other things, bjit catching his eye instantly, was a little packet of crisp, new. American hundred-dollar gold certificates. He counted them wonderingly one thousand one hun-i hun-i dred dollars. He laid them down and I picked 1111 a wallet. It contained some (silver and a few dollars in small bills, i Wallen passed his hand a little da::edly across his eyes; and then continued con-tinued his examination. There was a photograph, a little faded, a little old-I old-I fashioned, the photograph of a very I beautiful woman. He turned it over, j On the hack was written: "Elizabeth Towers Wallen." His mother! He had never known his mother. He held the photograph for a long time in his hand, gazing at the face that now somehow seemed to smile back at him then put it reverently rever-ently aside. There remained perhaps a dozen documents; mortgages in his father's favor, stock certificates and securities of various sorts, the total running into many thousands of dollars sixty thousand, he put it at a guess, figuring the certificates at par value. Lastly, there was a small sealed envelope. lie opened it with a curious sense of excitement. Here, perhaps, was the secret that had bound up his father's life so mysteriously, and no he whistled ngain in that low, surprised way. It was hip father's will, a terse, short document, bequeathing everything every-thing "to my son, Stacey Wallen, i whom I charge with the care of my j faithful servant Gunga as long as the latter shall live." Wallen got up and began to pace the little cabin. Gunga ! The will was dated at San Francisco two years ago. Where was Gunga now? Dead, perhaps, since the two were inseparable and Gunga had not come aboard with his master at Honolulu so Captain Laynton had stated. Captain Cap-tain Laynton ! Wallen stared at the articles that littered the hunk the conviction slowly dawning upon him that he had wofully misjudged the Monleigh's commander and mentally owed the other an apology for jumping so hastily to conclusions. There was not even n shadow of proof that his father's death, after all, had not been accidental. His suspicions sus-picions had arisen naturally enough in view of the past, and his own recent escape; but certainly it appeared to be decidedly "far-fetched" now, and certainly cer-tainly it was no deep-laid plot on the part of Captain Laynton, such as, in a rtazy, fantastical way, he had imagined it might have been. What possible motive could Laynton have in carrying out the original purpose pur-pose for which he had been chartered, except that he felt in honor hound to do so? None ! And if the man had been dishonest he could have put that eleven hundred dollars lying there on the bunk into his own pocket anil no one would have been the wiser! Even the matter of the wireless, which in bis suspicious state of mind had assumed perhaps exaggerated ex-aggerated proportions, had been shot I to pieces, so to speak, as far as It being be-ing there for any ulterior purpose was concerned and by irrefutable evidence Helen MacKay's ! And with a vision of brown eves and gloriously truant hair before him and the thought of tomorrow when the vision should materialize Into reality again he turned into his hunk. And the "tomorrow" and the two days that followed, not only dispelled all final doubt from his mind but found iiini responding frankly to the general good-fellowship which he found existing exist-ing in tin? cabin. They passed quickly those three days too quickly. And they were the happiest days Wallen had ever known because Helen MacKay had made them happy days, and because a new glad thing had come into bis life. Had she, too, come to care? He did not know. Sometimes, In little intimate inti-mate ways, in a smile or a glance or 11 word or a quick, trustful touch of the hand, he read the answer to his unspoken un-spoken question as his soul wanted to read the answer. THE HEROINE. Synopsis Stacey Walien, first male of. the bark Upolo, in ihe Java sea, is the sole survivor of the crew, all victims of yellow ; fever. Ting Wall, Chinese sailor, last man lo die. tells Wallen he and five other Chinamen were sent aboard by "Drink-House Sam," notorious no-torious character of Singapore, to kill him. This recalls to Wallen an incident of his childhood which seems connected with the confession. confes-sion. While delirious, Wallen en- 1 ters in the uhip's log the fact of j his death and abandons the vessel 1 in a small boat. Wallen's boat drifts to the island of Arm and a j Scottish trader there, MacKniuhl, ! cares for him. Learning that a ship :s in port on the other side of tlie island, twenty miles away, Wallen, though unlit for the task, starts to reach it. He sets out but falls exhausted on the trail. There he is found by a man and woman who are from the ship he was trying try-ing to reach, Mott, first mate, and Helen MacKay, a passenger. They convey him to the vessel. The ship proves to be a small tramp steamer, the Monleigh, Captain Laynton. Laynton tells Wallen the vessel had been chartered by Wallen's father to find him, the father knowing his son to be in grave danger because of a long-standing feud between tiie elder Wallen and a notorious pirate. Ram Gulab Singh. Laynton also informs him of the death of his father, explaining that the fatality was believed to be an accident. Wallen instantly associates his father's fa-ther's death with the Chinaman's confession on the Upolo. ' He takes over the charter of the vessel and sails for Singapore. CHAPTER IV. 5 The Hand Sinister. The moonlight bathed her in a soft luminance as she leaned over the ship's rail; and it seemed to Wallen that he had never seen so beautiful a face. No, "beautiful" wasn't the word at all. It was more than that a something that counted for more than mere prettiness of features. "I know you're just dying to find out how I came aboard here," she laughed. "I could see it in your face every time you looked at me at supper." sup-per." "Y'es," Wallen admitted. ' "That's true, Miss' MacKay. In fact, I've been waiting here on deck for ages to ask you." She did not answer at once she was leaning farther over the rail, her eyes fixed on the bubbling phosphorescence phosphores-cence as it glided past the ship's hull. "You are a western man, as we speak of the West here, Mr. Wallen," she said at last seriously ; "and perhaps per-haps you do not know the East very well that is, the outpost East, as I call It. Conventions here are are quite different. You, I am sure, are mentally disapproving of my presence on board; you are thinking that I should be accompanied by my mother or my father or a brother, or at least by a female companion of some sort, instead of which I have only this." She drew her hand from her pocket, and in the open palm, as she rested it on the rail, lay a small but very serviceable automatic pistol. It was unexpected, abrupt, and it startled him. He stared blankly at the exquisite silver chasing of the thing as it glinted in the moonbeams. moon-beams. "But hut to be where that is is necessary?" he ventured, a little awkwardly. awk-wardly. She shook her head as she returned the weapon to her pocket. "I do not mean it in that sense that it is necessary," she answered. "Those of 11s who live in the islands of the Peninsula are brought up with firearms from the time almost that we can walk, and conventions with us follow fol-low the code framed by the conditions which surround us. "It's it's quite different from" she laughed outright, merrily now "Vassar. for example. I was there two years. And so you see, Mr. Wallen, Wal-len, if one wants to go anywhere down here it is simply a question of availing oneself of Ihe first opportunity, opportu-nity, whatever it may be. "It's a very homy and commonplace explanation," she said. "I am going to pay a long-promised visit to my uncle and aunt in Sumatra. We live that is, father and I on Menado, just north of the Makassar strait. All we see of the outside world is an occasional occa-sional trading schooner; and so when Captain" Laynton put in to ride out a few days' bad weather, with him came the opportunity I was speaking of. "He said he was to touch at a number num-ber of ports beginning with Pobi and work down 10 Singapore. Well, at Singapore I can get passage across to Sumatra, and that's the whole story. You see" she was demurely serious now "I have been very precise because be-cause I understand that you are really in command now, and if you disapproved disap-proved too terribly you might order me ashore at the first port." "Put you ashore!" exclaimed Wallen Wal-len with a laugh. "Not much! T.e-sldes, T.e-sldes, we're not touching at any port b''ore Singapore. And" with sud-ricu sud-ricu inspiration "I'll tell you what, .lacKay, we'll run you over to Suruat- from there, if you like." ' Continued His Examination. carry an installation; but Captain Laynton, having no idea of trading with an American port for some j mouths, anyway, said he didn't see : why he should pay wages he didn't have to, and discharged his operator when ho left Honolulu." "Yes," said Wallen quickly. "P,ut you?' "Conditions of the East again," she told him smilingly. "Father installed a small station on our plantation a few years ago, and that nearest neighbor of ours did likewise. It's been heaps of fun, and, of course. I learned lo operate op-erate it. I got Captain Laynton's per- ' mission, teased Mr. Spree, the chief I engineer, inlo letting me have the 1 power, and I've been amusing myself ; with it since I've been aboard. Put nuv, sir" with sudden severity "we are forgetting that you are still an invalid, and I am keeping you up. Please take me below, Mr. Wallen." j "Pelow ! Put, no!" he protested. "It's early yet." I "But, yes!" she insisted, gayly fin- , perious, and led the way across the j deck. "You shouldn't even have been allowed up for supper, you know!" , Wallen, because he could do nothing else, followed her down the com- j 'paninnway and into the saloon. And there, despite his good-natured grumbling, she stood and watched him in a quaint motherly way until, per- force, he was obliged to go to his cabin ; "Singapore means the 'City of Lions,' you know. (TO BE COXTINUKD.J |
