Literature.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 278, 28 November 1904, Page 4

Literature.

THE GHOST OF THE '• GREY GULL." " Phyllis." said Alan M'Keag audaciously, " when is it to be sottied?" , , ... Phyllis Lisle shook her liuad with a gesture arguing ill for this petition from her suitor. " What do you mean ? " she replied, feigning an ignorance which her heightened colour contradicted. Qur engagpnient," he returnwl. t* You almost promised, you know, laat time I r«>t into Choinich Island jtith the Grey Gull, that who I next rami, you would give me a definite answer; and isn't this next time now ? " He spoke with an Irish accent and manner which went well with liis name, his dark face and eyes, and rather reckless beetling. Phyllis liked him, but she waa not prepared to (acknowledge that she did more. "I maide no such promise," she satil. I asked you, anyhow," ha asserted boldly ; " and you did not say •'iio,' "• " X cannot always be saying ' no " ghe retorted. . «Say ' yes ' this time, then," he uilgiad, acospting the opening with alacrity. .He moved closer to her, but she itiew away. Hitherto the conversation hail savoured of badinage ; now ithat she recognised that he was not to be put off so lightly she adopted {mother tone.

■" Mr. M'Keatg," sli; -aid gravely, her blue eyes meeting liis black ones fairly, " whatever I said did not say—l certainly committed my sell to nothing. And now I must dot do so "

- '■', Why ■? ,J - he demanded, stung by the change in her. " I will be frank with you—it is jheatfor us Moth. My father has forbidden me * to—to "—she hesitated, Jjlushing"—" to think more of you. Jf you had seen him first, after your arrival, he would probably have told you so." They were walking on tie sand dunes bordering the land-locked bay that constituted the barfbour of Choinich, in which the twenty-ton ketchragged yacht Grey Gull, from which JrtMog had just landed, lay anchored, her cloae-reefed main-sail' flapping soddenly with the wet gathered in ,the racing seas visible outside the jftelter, through which her owner had bammeraa "her to reach his sweetheart, who was now giving him so Cold a reception. " But," he expostulated, "your father made no objection before—jwhy should he do so now ? " " That," she answered decisively, drawing her tall, lissom figure to its lull height, " you must ask him—l cannot tell you. Here he comes." Sha pointed towards, where, across the, dunes, an elderly, anxious-faced nail was hurrying in their direction. He waa the proprietor of Choinich Island, which he used as a holiday resort for himself and his 'daughter, the latter of whom parted from M'Keag 8s her parent approached., and took her way to the house oh a hill above the harbour.

"M. Lisle," said the young man. impetuously to the other, " Phyllis has lust told me that you no longer '■approve of our acquaintance. May X ask the reason ? "

Phyllis' fatter, especially when agitated, had a jerky habit of speech, (vbioh accentuated his normal fussiness.

: " I did not expect you, ll he retorted ; " you should have come to b»—first. It was wrong not to—vely wrong. " ! •'•' 1 met Phillis on the shore, quite by chance." " That is no exsuse—none. But I Urill answer your question*—plainly. I have had liad reports of you—very, Other girls—low company—(borrowing! mowey. Ample to justify my opinion that" my daughter slhould see no more of you." • v I suppose," queried Alan, controlling his temper, '* that these :Stales come from Joseph Torridon—l heard he was in here with the Phaon. SgW, ii*i?e<l, is partly why I came, Knowing he was no friend of mine." " You caxiaot expect me to tell you that," jerked Mr. Lisle, but his face showed that M'Keag had hit the mark.

" Perhaps not," retorted the other tJ-ainly, " but I shall go out again now—t shall find Torridon—and 1 shall not only make him tell nie, but eat his words—the hound."

He spoke with a savage determina!tio<n which alarmed the proprietor of Choimch.

" Abpurd ! " he ejaculated. "You Can't—l wonder you got in—blowing half a gale then—<a whole one now. lYou'll be drowned—sure to." '' Better that than remain under libel," returned Alan, moving off to.wards the beach. • • * * * • The big steam launch Phaon was dipping bows under into the huge seas which were meeting her as she headed for Choinich, and, on the bridge beside the skipper, Mr, Joseph Torrid»n was keeping the captain at his work. " Don'B ihteme me," the latter was expostulating, " for the repairs bill you'll see after this trip ; she'll go through right enough, but there's ibound to be a deal of deck damage, anyhow." 4 A great. wave, landing solid on the forecastle, where it tore away yards of bulwark rails and woodwork, confirmed this opinion ; but Torridon, a little stout man of forty or so, with a foxy face, did not flinch. " I wish you'd mind your own business, Peters," he retorted. " I Pay you to take me where I wish to

go, anil I have told you I desire to reach Choinich. The cost of doing so is my affair, not yours."

Thus snubbed, I'aplain Teters stationed hiinseli beside the man at the wheel, whose dodging of the seas he supervised until the black shape of the island began to loom dimly ahead through the flying spindrift. Suddenly something else than the land caught bin eye. and he snatched the glasf-JS from their box. " Mr. Torridon." he si.i,id, looking through them, if you are anxious to go into Choinich, there is somebody else iu just as Kg a hurry to leave it. The man that is smashing that ketch along in this weather, close to the edge of Cloinich Race, too, must l>e mad drunk. Look, sir ! ' s

Even in calms the Race of Choinich is dreaded by mariners for the treacherous tidal currents that eddy sind swirl within it ; it showed clearly outlined against the outer sea, wind.tormented ■though that was ae an area of white foam that tossed and tumbled as thougih in a gigantic cauldron. Torridon worked his glasses upon the black speck struggling under a scrap of cauvas close to it. All at once he cried out : " Good heavens ! " he ejaculated. " Something has given way ; she is broaching to. Keep down for her, Peters." The captain gave the necessary order to the steersman, who, as he whirled the spokes, ventured his opinion. " She is the Grey Gull—Mr, M'Keag's ketch,"- he said in Highland iashion. " I heard yesterday she was bound for Choinich, and he is a fery pold reskless gentleman, moreofer."Torridon's brows drew •down, and he gazed for a while at the little craft, which they were now near anough to see it was in deadly perilalmost, indeed, in the grip of the Race.

" Keep away again ! " he ordered abruptly, a s though he had made up his miiwl. "If people are fools enough to venture out in a cockleshell with a gale like this blowing, I am not going to expose life and property to get them out of the fix." This time Peters expostulated in place "of oibeying. But, sir," he protested, " we can pick them ujj without much extra risk. You would not have us leave sailormen to drown ! " " Keep away !-' reiterated his owner savagely, "or give up your berth."

" I'll give up my berth, then," returned the captain promptly. v Keep her as she goes," he ordered to tho wheel. ''' I'll see no fellow creature go to Davy Jones if I caa bear a hand to "

lint jblefore he coulij conclude a wild #|uall swept down in a curtain of blinding rain. When it clearad only the Race, roaring close to the Rhaon, was visible—the Grey Gull hatd vanished.

A month later Torrjdon's yacht lay in Choinich Bay, reaidy to fc|sar away the owner and his bride the following day. The wedding, in accordance with Scottish custom, was to be quietly performed at Mr. Lisle's house on the hill, and the Phaon's crew were leasing in anticipation of it.

There had been told on board of tbe desertion of the Grey Gull, and the men-moetly Hetiridcans and superstitious—had spoken amonhst themselves, freely enough, of the result. But for the present the episode was forgotten, and the ship's company turned in, thanks to the whisky provided by their employer, in no condition to thing of such matters. Even the hand supposed to keep •anchor watch, as he saw a young, moon sink behind Den Choinich, leavng the bay black but la'bbolutely peaceful, concluded that his office was a sinecure, and stretched himself out for a sn->oze. Presently something aroused him, and, glancing seawands, he jumped elect.

" Below !" he screamed, wildly hammering on the deck to rouse his fellows. "The ghost of the Grey Gull is oni us ! "

hite faces clustered the Phaon's rail to see, approaching steadily, though there was not a breath of air stirring, a little ketch-rigjjed craft, its outlines defined against the darkness by u ghastly glow from its spars and rigging. As it stopped alongside, they made out, 'beside its tiller, a, white-clad figure of a man, whose ribs and bones were marked, as through his garments, by the same horrid light. He did not speak, but from above the Pbaon a voice sounded. " Ptooam, ahoy ! " it called in a hollow fashion.: "I am come for your owner. I shall send a boat."

A dinghy trailed asternr of the ketch, and in it a boy's limine —its skeleton showing like that of the steermam—dropped silently. A stroke or two, which made a path of natural' phosphorescence in the still water, Wrought the tiny fabric t 0 the steamer's ladder, to which the crew, mad with panic, had already conducted Torridon, whom thiey roused from his bed.

They tumbled him into the dinghy, which returned to the ghostly ketch, and the latter, swingling round as though a strong breeze instead of a calm mas propelling it, made for the open, where the glow from it disappeared,much to the relief of the Photon's crew.

But it was liroord daylight before any of tihem ventures ashore, and even when Captain Peters, whom Torriliad Detained in spite of his threats, hesitated before reporting what had happened to Mr. Lisle. When he did so, the wedding party was gathering, and that gentleman demanded where his employer was.

" Thatl would not like to say," answered the seaman, when he -had toM his tale ; '' but he is bound to (be where he deserves, seeing; the Grey Gull itself came for him." " Nonsense ! exclaimed the other, though the circumstantiality of the story struck him strangely. "Absolute nonsense.: Mr. M'Keag's yacht went to splinters in the Race. I picked up pieces myself. Mr. M'Kea>g, poor fellow, is "

Here," said Alan M'Keag from the doorway, uikl the sipeoker, more death-like than the new-comer, collapsed into a chair.

"I am very sorry to uUmn you, sir," Alaa went on, but I am honest flesM and blood, and I can reassure you in a moment. I recognised the Flhaon coming towands me during that gale, and guessed at the sudden change which left us to drown. But, after an awful struggle, the Grey Gull, very battered, reached shelter far from here. There, guided by private information, I refitted on the quiet, and shipped one of these new electric auxiliaiy motors, and some phosphorescent paint, which, with a trick I have of ventriloquism, made the ketch a most ghostly craft." But you have treated Torridon—scandalously.'' "On the contrary. The Grey Gull, after landing mo here this moi&ing, has taken him corofoiStaMy across the mainland. And last night, during the deadly fear which I had calculated upon to stir his conscience, he signed this document, acknowledging) that he had libelled me to you." Alan handed over a pajwr. which Mr. Lisle persued. "Forgive me," said the latter Simply, holding out his hand. "I have wronged you, mylboy. But what will Phyllis say to it all ? " Phillis," responded Alan confidently, told me the last time I saw her, that she could wot always be saying ' no,' so perhaps, now, she will say •' yes.' " And she did.