The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 — page 62: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

446 A SECRET OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC. ‘‘ Well, it was a long time before I could tell your father about our mis- fortune. Then he was not willing to go outside in broad daylight. He did not want all those sailors in here. When we finally discovered how matters stood and that father was shot, Mr. Thorne went out and brought him in. You were all away from the cave at the time. I saw the fight between the mates and Atwell from the top of the cliff, and saw you driven into the cave. But father told us an armed man could hold the cave a.week, so Mr. Thorne did not go back, fearing that in the dark you might mistake him for an enemy. I went with him the next morning, and we arrived just in time to save you from Atwell.’’ ‘“ And what has become df the scoundrel and his men ?”’ ‘Your father disarmed them and took the long boat away from them. Then he carried them to another part of the island—outside of the cliffs, of course—and built them a hut, gave them seeds and the gardening tools you saved from the wreck, and a chance to earn their livelihood. Father and I have told him all about your coming from America to find him, and he has agreed to go back with us—for a year. When he returns he will take steps to send Atwell and the others back to their homes. He is getting ready the new vessel—it is really a nice little schooner—to take us to Valparaiso. T’he mates and Jessop and Shields will man it.’’ ““ And—and Monckton ?”’ '' He is going with us,’”’ she said gravely. ‘He is repentant, having had a fearful experience with that company of cut throats. I’m sorry to say that my father is still so bitter against him that he wants him left behind with ° Atwell; but I begged Mr. Thorne, and he will take him to Valparaiso. You don’t mind, do you? ”’ Not xow /”’ replied Thorne, with energy, clasping her hand again. * * * *k 4 Sa eh 2 Less than a month later, at the end of the short rainy séason, the roomy schooner, built by Edgar Thorne and his native helpers, and rigged by the mates of the Naida and Jessop and Shields, set sail from the island which for twenty years had been Thorne’s home. And it would always be his home. He had little interest beyond the confines of its towering coral cliffs. ‘I go only to please you, my son,’’ he said, standing by Howard’s side and gazing regretfully at the lone isle, ‘‘and to assure Undercliff of my for- giveness. My heart is here, where the harsh world cannot reach it.’’ Having scarcely experienced a day of unpleasant weather, the little vessel arrived at Valparaiso. Monckton left them, sailing at once in a tramp steamer for San Francisco, thence to take rail for Boston. Captain Latimer’s party went home by way of the Horn. When they reached Boston they found that Carter Monckton had arrived before them, and from something he told his father the elder Monckton had hurriedly sold his interest in the ship- ping firm, and both had left the city. There was little doubt, even in Mr. Undercliff’s mind, as to the manner in which the money for the robbery of which Edgar Thorne was unjustly accused, had first disappeared from the company’s safe and then reappeared again. But despite the fact that his name was unstained before all men, and that ecomicbook 3