Beadle's Dime Library No. 230 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

24 The Flying Dutchman of 1880. . jecting remarks to clear up matters, rather tend- ng to confuse them. “*T am pretty sure, now you say he was not dead; that I saw him in Paris less than six months ago,” said Cyril. ‘‘My mother and I were driving in the park, you know—” The Bore dee Beolong, Cyril Adolphus,” putin his mother proudly. ‘‘ You know that’s where we was introduced to the Dook of Mon- tew Carlo and the Marky dee Roolett. It was in the Bore we seen the young man, Mr. Bruce; ridin’ in-a elegant coopay with Viscomb Lord Teviot and her ladysbip. Very nice lady she was, Mrs. Peters, and me and ber was like sis- ters in the Hotel dee Londreez.” Cyril Ado}pbus was turning very red and pulled his mother’s sleeve, a signal evidently reed on between them, for she became silent with ladicrous abruptness and he went on: “We bad been introduced to Lord Teviot at one of the Presidential receptions, and he had been rather police to us, when he heard we knew you, Miss Bruce. Lady Teviot asked us wml sorts of questions about you, and particularly if we bad heard what bad become of yow since you went to Batavia. She seemed to be quite anxious, for some cht till I told her I had seen your names in t r as passengers on the Alaska from England.” ‘You forget, Cyril Adolphus,” again inter- rupted his mother ‘‘ Don’t forget to tell what she said about that murdering, wicked wretch of a Dotchman, and what a time they had with “4 eect ves.” ped ‘. ril pulled her sleeve and stop er again, “Lord Teviot told mé sote very horrible things, that I don’t want to nen here, for foar of shocking the ladies, but the result of it wus that he was quite civil to us in his way, though I could see he had a prejudice against Americans.” | ‘But Johnston,” I inte ‘* What about | him? That is the interesting point to Miss | Bruce, Mr. Hyatt. I don’t want to interrupt, | bat I think the sooner you tell us about that, | the sooner will her suspense be relieved, You | say you met bim?” Yes, Mrs, Peters, in company with Lord and Lady Teviot, one afternoon, They were talk- ng very earnestly, so much so that Lord Teviot did not see us, though we passed within six feet of their carriage, meeting them face to face,” ‘*‘And how did he look?’ ejaculated Mami» eagerly. ‘**Ob, Mr. Hyatt, was he well?” “He looked the picture of health, and really, I rust say, infinitely —that is—” Cyril stopped, confused, and I knew what he was thinking of. Jobnston, as a young man, was painfully plain. He wanted to tell us that tis looks had improved, and didn’t know how ti» say it, for fear of offending his cousin. I helped him out. ‘** Let me see,” I said; “he promised to bea fine, powerful fellow when his beard grew out. You mean that his appearance was much im- preved, don’t you?” He gave a gasp of relief. ’'Tiank you, yes; that’s just it. On my word, I should hardly have known him. He has fi led out inte a regular atblete. J wouldn't like to tackle him. And he has grown splendid whiskers and mustache, while bis bair has dark- ened considerably, and his fuce is tanned quite deeply. Lonly kaew him by bis peculiar eyes, that seem to look through a man, as it were.” ** And did he see you?” I asked. ‘Ob, yes. That was how I knew it to be Jobnston, Lord Teviot saw nothing. But his «-@s were all the while on the move, and I saw him teke us in with one of his rapid glances, and smile, as if he knew us, in a moment.” nm —_ Sry sir,” a ted Mr. Bruce, | 6a 3 ye no speak till him? tWwe tled—it took us so by sur- prise,” said Cyril, ‘“‘that we didn’t think to atop and bail him. I confess, too, I am afraid of seenes among those aristocratic people. They are so different from us. But we turned round as soon as we could, and drove back to overtake the Teviots’ carriage—” “ And we couldn’t find hide nor hair on ’em,” bis mother put in rapidly, as if she had been bursting with ernese, ‘‘'and when we got to the hotel what should we find but his lordship and Lady Teviot had left for London in a burry | —sich a burry they bad no time to pack up, but left the de sham to foller. And we Dain't «een one of ’em since, and I’m reel mad with , io Meat nt fe treat me so, for her and me was jest like two sisters in the Hotel dee Londreez.” ‘“*And that is all I can tell you for certain,” said Cyril Adolphus in conclusion, “ and I hope you're not offended, Miss Bruce, at the way I spoke of your cousin, for, indeed, I had no idea he was more than a very distant relative. I beg your pardon sincerely, I’m sure.” ked more like a man than I had ever seen him before, and Mamie Bruce looked at a if she thought so, too, for she said, gentiv: ‘* You are not to blame at all, Mr. Hyatt. J am the one that bas been justly punished formy own blind selfishness and frivolity in days gone And then Cyril Adolphus, with a tact that showed his travel had not been all thrown away by any means, said to his mother: - y, dear me, mother, you forget our en- gagement with Mr. Banks at three, and here it’s a quarter to three now. We must burry. I'm sure Mr. Bruce will excuse us. A Jawyer’s ap- pointment, sir, on the estate of my uncle James; may cost us quite a little sum to be late. Good- by, sir; good-by, Miss Bruce; Mrs. Peters, au revore. Come, mother, or we shall be late.” And so swept the old lady out, talking all the time, in spite of her whispered remonstrances that ‘‘old Banks said four,” while Mr. Bruce remarked: ‘*Eh, sirs, but the lad’s nae sic a fule as I thocht. Gin he’d wark for a leeving, one might mak’ a mon of him.” But Mamie Bruce only said: “God bless bim! He has seen Aim, and he will come to me at last!’’ When I went home that evening I didn’t know whether to feel glad or sorry, but finally con- ny I was glad things had turned out asthey d. From that day forward I went regularly to the Bruces’, and we waited with intense anx- oe hear from the lost one. @ watched the European steamers, but failed to find the names we sought in.the lists of passengers. And so three weeks passed on, till one day I received a note from Mr. Bruce, Saying: “Come to our house directly. Doctor Peters is here, with Captain Denyse and the lost one.”’ T went as fast as I could. The rest I leave to Clarence. AGNES DENYSE —0:—— PART V. OLARENCE DENYSE’S STORY. — —- + CHAPTER I. A NIGHT DUEL AT SEA. My wife has asked me to continue the story which she began before our marriage, and has turned it over into my bands unreservedly, ask- ing me to burn it and try to forget she ever wrote it, if I found how wicked she had been and despised her for it. On the whole, I have concluded to let it stand as it is; for, while it reveals some weakness on the part of the writer, it confirms what Il know to be a fact, that my Agnes had an excellent heart, with all her little vanities and love of ease and Juxury, and was sure to come out right in the end, The unfortunate circumstances of her early life, and the fact that she married once for money, could not quite hide ber real nobility of nature; and as my wife, I feel bound to de- fend her from aspersion, founded on partial views of her character. She was not my first love, it is true; but m affection for her is all the stronger because can see her faults, and she certainly behaved nobly, as soon as she saw her duty clearly. In order to make things clear, I must go back a little, to the time when I was first mate of the old George Washington. Dr. Samuel Peters has noted the fact that the two Danes, Nelson and Andersen, leaped overboard in a fit of delirium tremens, to swim to a strange ship, and that I found them in the calaboose at Batavia, pretty well broken down by their treatment on board the stranger. Both had been beaten severely, and the owner of the ship seems to have been a very cruel man; not above taking delight in te we d on the fears of ignorant sailors, for I found them both convinced that he a po the Evil One himself and completely cowed own. I was hardly sorry for the effects of his rough measures in one respect, that I never bad any furtber trouble with them from rum. From being the hardest cases in the crew they became the best men I had for work, and followed me from ship to ship till I became a master and bad a vessel of my own, when I made Nelson my third mate and never bad a better. n my early days of seafaring I had some- times been inclined to doubt the advantages of education to a sailor, beyond a certain point; but, when I became a shipmaster, I reaped the benefit in many ways; and it was my educa- tion, such as it was, that finally procured me a fine steamer in the Pacific Trade, brought me my wife, and enabled me to forget completely my morbid folly of the past, when I sighed for the unattainable. It was on the next voyage after the one in which I learned to know true worth of my Agnes, and obtained the dear privilege of com- forting her in her sorrow, that I met Dr. Sam- uel Peters, for the first time in two years. — I found him in B«tavia, where I had left him; but he was a chanuzed man—not entirely for the better. As an impecunious young doctor, he bad been a good fellow—hot-headed, impetu- ous, full of conceit and real knowledge to- . I thamk you from my heart for your gether, but generous toa fault, and enthusiastic Fa his calling, As a medical man, with the lar practicd in Batavia, he was cynical, suspicious, elose in money matters, bitterly sareastic, and, I eould see in his manner, a thoroughly unhappy and disappointed man, at thirty-one years ot age. I felt the difference, and I think he did toa He seemed to be overjoyed at the excuse offered him by bis uncle’s disease to get away from Ba- tavia, and the eagerness with which he made bis arrangements to go with me convinced me that bis change was apparent more than real. Oace on board the Ocean Queen, he relaxed every day from his artificial mask of selfish- ness, and became more like the old Dr. Sam, of the Spindrift. We renered our old friendship, and, just as I suspected he would, he opened his heart to me on the way to Yokohama, and told me his story. I knew it already. I bad known the p- toms myself. The man was crossed in love, and that was all there was aboutit. I sineere- ly wished we bad had a widow as charming as my Agnes on board the Queen to draw from his morbid brooding over the unattaina- ble, but as we bad none, I dd my best to dis tract him by trying to make a practical navi- ator of him—to smal) effect, I must admit. He evoured the problems eagerly enough, but he mastered them too soon to occupy him Jong, As soon as he could pick out the ship’s place within a minute or two, he tired of it, and began the same old story again. It was Mamie Bruce all the time, till I tired. To be sure, she was a very sweet ‘ but ! could not but remember how she encour- eged me once to make a fool of myself. and I felt that n y Agnes was a much more suitable companion for the voyage of life to a man like me, who lives on his pay. A slight coolness sprung up between the doctor and myself on this account, and I think, bad we been ashore, we might have uarreled and parted. Buta ship is a wonderful reconciler, and bad weather the best of all. Twelve hours from Yokohama we ran into the edge of a typhoon, and the doctor behaved like a trumpall through, while the storm seemed to blow his morbid ways out of him like magic. , e had become quite a good meteorol at Batavia, and, as a matter of fact, if I bad taken bis advice before the typhoon, when the glass gave me no warning, I should have saved two boats stove in by the sea and a jib-boom sprung. But that storm set him to talking of the old Spindrift after we were out of it. The Spin- drift typhoon had faded from my mind in a multitude of other ships and storms; but to him it was fresh, inasmuch as he had never been to sea since that period. Of course that subject brought up the Flying Dutchman and poor Jobnston, and I began to wonder what bad become of the tellow, and who it was that bad picked bim up, when Peters began to fidget, and at last said: ' ‘Denyse, if you'll give me your word of bonor not to tell a soul, I'll tell you some I promised of course, for I wascurious. — ‘- Jobnston’s alive,” he said, “at least he was alive some time after that storm. I’veseen and kken tohim. Where he is now, Heaven knows: Tes eunt deed he'll turn up yet. He's one of the noblest fellows God ever made, and one of the most unhappy.” ‘Why, where—?” I began. He interrupted me. ‘‘No questions. I cannot answer them, I am bound by a promise, which, if I breek, it will probably cost bim Ais life. He's in the power of an infernal, cruel, utterly merciless villain, who values human life no more than that African king who kills his subjects for amusement, to do honor toa visitor. If it were not fortbat— Never mind. He'll come out all right some day, worse luck for me perhaps.” And then he got morbid and gloomy again and took to smoking hard for the next half hour. The typhoon had driven us a long way out of our course, though we managed to get out of the thick of it. The trouble was that we rot on the wrong side, through my following the law of storms as Jaid down in the officia) storm uides, and not following Sam's advice, because had much pride in my profession to give intoalandsman. When! gota chance at tle sun again, to correct my dead reckoning, I found we were down near the Ladrone Islands, ina part of the sea formerly infested with pirates, and by no means safe for a du cailing vessel even to-day, if she be short-hand: and unarmed, Of course, for an eighteen knot steamer lik« the Queen, there was no denger «xcept from reefs, 80 I held my course to the northeast again, and we steamed on to meke up for lost me. I ordered a double lookout, and looked to the ship’s armament, for we bad plenty of smal arms on board and a strong crew. On the next night after my observation, we had a moon, and I took advantage of Jupiter being near her, to take some and fix my on as close as I could. ing It was while engaged with the sextant, with ecomicbooks (E(6) _ os | |