In The Flashlight

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 610, 12 March 1929, Page 5

In The Flashlight

By

Bernard Rowthorne

Author of “The Jewels of Sin,” “The Shadow o:f the Yamen,” Etc., Etc.

I SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS ] CHAPTERS I and II. —Carston and t Melford are seated in the saloon of a < yacht. Carston is threatening Melford t with the fact that Otto Freedlam is sti!! - alive, and is anxious to learn the where- £ abouts of his old-time partner, Owen 1 Oldstairs. Melford, driven into a corner, 1 admits tacitly that he is Owen Oldstairs. * ] Margaret, his daughter, comes ror a book, 1 | and departs almost immediately. Car- t ston made it plain that, as the price of ( keeping Melford’s real identity secret, he , must be allowed to marry Margaret. The - ; girl's father tells Carston about Noel and t i Donald Mayhew. How that both broth- 1 ers loved Margaret, but she loved Noel He went to German East Africa, and three c months later was reported missing. They < are in a rough sea, and while the men g are talking there is a violent lurching of j the vessel. The second officer comes to c sav that the propellor shaft has snapped. - There is great danger of driving into t Corrievrechan Race, with Jura ahead. The men take to the boats. Melford is s terrified, hut Carston shows a manly front, procuring life-belts. Carston and Margaret get away in the first boat. This is wrecked. Carston, a strong swimmer. f saves both Margaret and himself. They are thrown on to the wet sand of an 1 inlet. j CHAPTER 111 “You see!” he shouted, as the gust ! passed. “You can’t do it. You’d j be blown over the cliffs if you try. I I’ve just got to carry you, and our | double weight will make it safer for i both of us.’’ ; Without so much as a by-your-leave ! he stooped and gathered her in his | arms as if she had been a child. In j spite of the chill wind, the girl felt ] j her face flame, and, conscious of his ; ardent gaze, closed her eyes. Carston ’ smiled, and once more began to move forward. More than once he stumbled in the rutted road; and several ; times was compelled to halt and turn ! his back to the fierce gusts; but at | i last, just as the moon broke clear, he ; 1 reached a broken gate set in a rough j I stone wall. He halted, and set the j i girl down. "Crouch in the shelter of the wall,” ] he said gaspingly, for the progress i against the wind had taxed even his giant strength. “It will shelter you from the gusts.” Shivering with cold. Margaret j obeyed him. and for a minute while j he recovered his breath. Carston him- j self crouched by her side. Neither ; iof them spoke. The girl was think- j ing of her father, wondering what had happened to him. and. even while she wondered, she was conscious of a little surge of shame as she remembered his fright at the thought of entering the j , life-boat. Carston’s face lit by the moon- : I light, wore a look of equanimity that was surprising in one in such a situa- j | ; tion, but the truth was that he found the situation eminently satisfactory.

He did not know what had happened to Mr. Melford, nor did he greatly care. Cherishing a deep passion for the girl he rejoiced that now she must feel deeply obligated to him, so that she could scarcely refuse to consider his desires; and he saw a way of realising those desires without recourse to the brutal methods that he had threatened her father with on board the yacht. Once as they crouched there, he glanced at her face. Seen in the moonlight, it was coldly beautiful, white and set as a face of marble, only the eyes seemed alive, and they were fixed in a steady gaze on the wild sea heaving under the stormy moon. After that glance, his breathing having become normal, he stood up, and looked over the wall at the landscape beyond, and as he did so a shout broke from him. “What is it?” cried the girl. “There’s a house over there,” he said, slipping down Into the lee of the wall, “a, farmstead by the look of it. When you are ready we will resume our way. We shall be in shelter in ten minutes.” “I am ready now,” said Margaret

simply, standing upright. He gave a curious laugh as he gathered her once more in his arms. The girl wondered if it were really necessary that he should carry her now; but warned by her previous experience made no protest, and passing through the gateway they moved in the direction of the house which Carston had described. The gusts were terrific, and made progress very slow; and once, as the man staggered and gasped, Margaret was moved to speak. “I am afraid that I am exhausting you.” “No!” cried Carston almost violently. “I could carry you to the world’s end.” As he shouted the words there was that in his tones which awoke a quick sense of embarrassment in the girl; and the eyes that looked down into her own were so ardent that they seemed to scorch her. She closed her eyes quickly, as if to protect herself from that burning gaze, and she did not open them again until he staggered through a cobbled gateway giving admission to a small farmyard. Just ahead of them a lamp gleamed through an uncurtained window and, while the wind roared canonously overhead, the yard, sheltered by the buildings on three sides of it, seemed wondrously quiet by comparison with the clamour outside.

“Put me down now, Mr. Carston,” said Margaret. “No!” he answered with a laugh of protest; at the same time clutching her more firmly. “I carry you to the finish. It is my due.” The girl felt her chilled face flush, but said no more; and a moment later.

Carston stepped inside a stone porch and knocked sharply upon a door. There was a sound of heavy feet on a flagged floor, then a latch was lifted, and the door opened, revealing a tall man of advancing years, who stared in amazement at the pair before him, then he spoke wi ,h a thick, Highland accent.

“Ah! Pless me! Wha are ye coomes to ma dure the nigcht?” “Shipwrecked people.” answered Carston simply, “who have need of shelter and warmth. This lady—” He got no further, for the farmer interrupted him. “Then step in, ye puir bodies. It turned the helpless from the dure.” shall neffer be said that James Stuart He moved aside as he spoke: and Carston, with Margaret in his arms, stepped into a raftered kitchen on the hearth of which glowed a Are of wreckwood and turf. The farmer closed the door, gave one glance at them, and making a gesture of excuse, crossing the kitchen, disappeared beyond a door that gave admission to another room, a sleeping apartment as Carston guessed, from which a moment later came the sound of voices.

Carston looked round and seeing a rush-bottomed chair near the lire, set Margaret in it, and kicked the logs into a blaze. Then he looked at the girl. Her beautiful face looked chilled, her lips were blue, and there were livid half-moons under her eyes. “You are frozen,” he said sharply, and without waiting for reply lifted her and the chair nearer the fire, and himself stood sideways holding his numb hands toward the warmth, the while he watched her with eyes that had in them a gleam of anxiety. Margaret took little note of his words; and made no reply to them. Between the shock of the shipwreck, the cold induced by the wind, and anxiety for her father, she was on the verge of collapse. She did not even look up, when the farmer re-entered the kitchen.

“Tha gude wife cam’s!” Carston nodded and asked a sharp question. “Have you any spirit?” “Usquebaugh!” answered the man sententiously; and without more ado went to a cupboard and produced therefrom a stone jar and a couple of mugs.

He poured out two portions of the fiery liquor, added hot water from a crock simmering on a chain over the fire, and silently handed them to Carston, who promptly placed one of the mugs in Margaret’s hands. “Drink that,” he said, in a peremptory voice. “Quick! It will drive the cold out of you.” Almost mechanically the girl obeyed him, and began to sip the fiery liquor; which stung her throat and nostrils and made her cough violently. “All of it!” he said masterfully, adding, “Believe me, it is very necessary.” Margaret persevered and managed to gulp down the hot spirit; then, as she handed back the empty mug, a motherly old woman, obviously risen from her bed, entered the room. Her first glance was for Margaret. “God save us! Puir chield!” A moment later her arms were round the girl, who collapsed upon her ample bosom, then the woman said something that Carston did not catch, and began to lead Margaret from the room. “The gude wife will care for yare lassie! ” said the farmer, with a reassuring nod at Carston. “We’ve had puir shipwrecked bodies here before.” Then a sudden thought seemed to

come to him, and without explanation he turned and followed his wife and Margaret, and a moment or two later emerged with an armful of clothing. “Ye will weir them? The gude wife is oaring for the puir lassie.”

Carston needed no second invitation, but as quickly as possible made the change, and then explained to his host what had happened. The old man listened without interruption, and at the end he spoke. “I mun awa’ to the next farm. There may be other puir bodies thrown up by the seas an’ wanderin’ in the nicht.”

Carston thought that w T as very unlikely, but did not say so, and when the man had informed his wife of his purpose, and had left the house, he seated himself in front of the fire. Presently overcome by the fatigue which had followed his exertions, and rendered somnolent by the warmth of the fire, he fell into a deep sleep. CHAPTER IV. When Carston awoke it was with the clash of a door in his ears, and in the grey light of a weeping dawn he saw the man who was his host standing with the moisture dripping from his clothes. Instantly he asked a question. “Found anything, farmer?” The farmer shook his head. “Naebody wi’ the life in him. There's the bodies of three puir sailor-lads on the sands, an’ a boat battered all to pieces. That's all, so far as I ken.” Carston nodded his head thoughtfully. It was the kind of news that he had looked for, and he was in no way surprised, nor did he appear greatly disturbed by it. He answered the man's words -with words that expressed a hopefulness that he did not feel.

“Two or three? There should be a score. Maybe some have won to the shore and found refuge like myself.” “Maybe,” agreed his host. “There are coves and inlets about here that would hide a ship.” Then he shook his head. “But ye ken the waters hereabouts are treacherous. There’s a double cur-1 rent —one up an’ one down, powerful enough to sweep a man-o'-war like a straw. ’Tis sma’ chance a man has in them, an’ it’s up to Corrievrechan or down the coast he will be swept. 1 | wouldn’t be trustin’ to see any o’ y’or j friends any more. But I’m drippin’, and’ ’tis a change I’ll be after. He disappeared, and stretching himself, Carston walked to the small- j paned window and looked out. A small farm yard met his view, ; but beyond the stone wall, he saw the road that he must have travelled with : Margaret in his arms, and beyond that the end of the land and a stretch of grey and angry sea. Moving a little and looking in the other direction, between half-shrouded wisps of cloud, he discerned the two hills that he had seen from the bridge of the yacht—the Paps of Jura. He was still looking at them when the sound of a door opening caused him to turn round, just in time to see Margaret emerging from the room where she had spent i the night. There was a wan look on her beautiful face, and dark circles under her eyes, while the blue eyes themselves had lost their sparke. She advanced slowly, with steps that were a little uncertain, and he instantly divined that she had been much shaken by the shock and the peril of the previous night. He hurried toward her. “Miss Margaret, I hope that you are— — ” j She stopped him with a gesture, j "My father?” she asked in a shaking

voice. “Has anything been heard—?” Her voice broke in a quaver, and she stopped, looking at him with appealing eyes. | "Nothing,” he answered, without | any attempt to soften the blow. “Our j host has been out most of the night, j looking for survivors. There is a i broken boat upon the shore, and the bodies of three sailors ” He did not finish the sentence, but ; as he saw the girl sway, leaped for- ! ward and caught her in his arms, j Then he lifted her in a chair by the j fire. "I think. Miss Margaret, you I had better not talk of this matter till | after breakfast. You will feel stronger then.” ' “But I must,” said the girl, quaver- ; ingly. “I shall only torture myself j with thinking if I don't. Tell me, ! if there any hope at all?” ' “Not much, I am afraid,” he ans- | wered, frankly, “though, of course, one j can never tell. The sea plays strange I tricks. The boat upon the shore may j be the one in which we ourselves left i the yacht. The other lifeboat may j have been safely beached in one of i the coves with which this coast j abounds. There is no telling.” I (To be continued.)