RIVEN ASUNDER. OR, BERYL GRAYSON'S ORDEAL,

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8382, 16 March 1907, Page 2

RIVEN ASUNDER. OR, BERYL GRAYSON'S ORDEAL,

A KOiIANCE OF THE SAN FRANCISCO DISASTER,

CHAPTER XIII-Continued. To the iv.»V,i.-.:\ wv.iMnjj o'.-.i-.v,d:>, she seemed •r:>- , e ;i i'.n.rl'uPy i ■:'>:,: t.u'K.-. g hisi-Mii it--r m:- i.y-'-. v -'■:•:■■ ness in h:^: : a;c hi'V p:!.-t hi;/., hj: wrs on the point of folk/win:;- , "'"; ; ' 1 | ;A ; IC appeared in the doi;) v. ay. : ,'o.! t»e barrier lightly, and \v.;s again at hits side. *"You fo:nd no one'"' She smiled at him vacantly, and there wa.3 xiu)h a look o.i her be;;utiful face a; him with pity. She turned silently, still with he." gentle, unmeaning .-mile, and flitted away. "Wait!" tha soldier called. She paid no heed, and quickly vanished from the .sight of the guard. ' "Too bad, too bad!" murmured the man. "But, in this city, to-day, there must be hundreds of cases like hers." Thereupon he shook his head .sadly, shouldered hi.; rifle, and continued his measured trump. CHAPTER XIV. "I WILL FIND HER!" Neil drifted bask to life as out of a horrid dream. The supreme joy that had besn his was blurred and blotted by the awful cataclysm that had shaken the minister's home like a house of cards. He dimly realized what must have happened, but he remembered only the rap on the door, Tonita's announcement that Berdyne was without, Beryl's outstretched hands and loving pleading face, then the crash as the avalanche of masonry crunched its way through roof and ceiling. Now he awoke to find a white bandage about his temples, and himself lying on a mattress on the floor of a great hall. On every side of him were mattresses and improvised cots. Anxiousfaced women were moving about, ministering to those who suffered, or assisting physicians in their work of mercy. Here and there a white sheet spread over a silent form told a gruesome ; story that sent a shudder to Neil's heart. He lifted himself on one elbow and a nurse, observing his movements, hurried towards him. "Is there something you want?" the nurse asked.

"My wife," returned Neil, continuing to peer about him. "Is she here?" "You were brought here by a young: lady, who hurried away as soon as the doctor told her you were not seriously hurt." "Hurried away," repeated Neil blankly. "Yes. The younjr lady seemed in great excitement.. She brought yon in a waggon, which carried a number of other injured people from Pine Street. Do you feel better, sir?" "There does not seem to be anything the matter with me." The nurse smiled indulgently. "You had a narrow escape," she said. "A brick from a falling chimney struck you a glancing blow on the head." A fiut the young lady who brought me here," he persisted; "what was she like?" "She was very dark " "Ah! It must have been Tonita!" "She looked like a Mexican girl, sir." "How long have I been here?" "Not more than an hour. This is the Mechanics' Pavilion, in temporary a hospital." "There has been an earthquake?" "The city, it is feared, has been "destroyed." "Beryl, my Beryl!" groaned Neil. *'l wonder what has become of her while I have been lying here unconscious." He had not seen Berdyne when the latter swept into the parlor of the minister's home and bore Beryl from the room. At that moment he was lying prostrate and senseless. "Perhaps," said the nurse, drawing a scrap of paper from her bosom, "this will give you some news of her you would find. It was left by the Mexican girl." M Neil took the folded paper, read it, and a low moan was wrenched from his tortured spirit. The note was indeed from the Mexicana, and although brief, was of startling import: "Senor Pre3ton,—Berdyne has carried away out poor dear Beryl. He used the automobile, and swept away ■with her under our stricken eyes. The city is in a turmoil, and search will be difficult; but, nevertheless, I go to do what I can.—Tor.ita." The paper fluttered from Neil's nerveless fingers and he fell back on the cot, his face in his hands. Was there no defeating the vile plans of Berdyne? Was he to triumph after all? But, no! Beryl was now Neil's wife! In the midst of hi a grief Neil took a comfort from the thought. His pure, innocent darling would be saved from the crafty snare of that fiend in human form, and he — Neil —was the one to do it. , In a flash his mood changed, and he arose to his feet with a face full of fierce determination. "Do you think you had better leave?" asked the nurse, pityingly. In the brief period the temporary hospital had been in operation, she had beheld much misery, and learned of many broken hopes, yet no case had impressed her more deeply than that of this strong, noble young man whose bride of the moment had been snatched away while he lay unconscious. "I am no weakling!" answered Neil, "and there can be no rest for me while my hapless darling is in the hands of one like this man Berdyne." He took his hat, thanked her for what she had done, left a twentydollar bill in her hands to help on the good work of the hospital, and fared away in his search of Beryl.

By Jialla Edwards, jvtiwr of "The I.iltle II Mwr." "««eJi«, l/ifWiirf,""2'iv'fo( '•/' <W "Mi'M«. Slerliii;):' "Lfi.'n-.-r JU-aiittHi,'' f!'--

A mighty task lay before him, as he realised ass soon <is lie had reached the sLrect and saw the devastation that tan rounded him, but love was Iris inspiration. And when was Uk'l-'? ever a ta.de which love pronounced impossible: Heaven itself would be his Beryl's safeguard, and eternal justice would voiid him on ! Whither should he r,;rn his stop.-.? He could think' of no place bid; ths house in Pine Streat. Perhaps in that place he would be able to pick up eome clue which would lead him swiftly and surely to Berdyne. And, when he once found him His strong right hand clenched with the thought, and his handsome face flamed with righteous wrath. "I will find her," he murmured, over and over, "I will find her!" As he took his way along Larkin Street, wending northward through crowds of stony-faced, half-dressed men and women, he observed a high structure to his right—a bony framework surmounted by a dome and rising out of a tangled heap of disrupted masonry. It was the ghost of the once lordly City Hall, and his soul shuddered at the completeness of the ruin. Here and there he could see •little spirals of smoke ascending, and he learned from those he passed that fires were starting, and that the broken mains rendered the firefighters helpless. The only way to fight the flames was with powder and dynamite, and he heard blast after blast from the regions around him. He saw the gallant soldiers from the Presido, who had appeared on the scene as if by magic, marching their measured beats; he saw a ghoul attempting to strip a dead body, and heard a shot from a soldier's rifle, which laid the robber lifeless across the form he had been despoiling; he heard women crying aloud for husbands and children, and he saw men searching frantically for the dear ones from whom they had become separated. Again and again the soldiers turned him aside from the direct course he was following toward Pine Street. His heart sickened with the thought that Beryl was abroad in that stricken city, worse off by far than if she had been alone. He groaned in his anguish, and prayed to the Father to direct him, to guide him quickly to the place where his love and his vengeance might accomplish their double purpose. His silent prayers were answered in part, in a way that seemed wellnigh miraculoils. In Jones Street he came upon the wreck of an automobile. The car had been wrecked by a toppling wall, an immense stone having crushed the machinery forward of the front seat.

The flaming red of the car struck him as familiar, and his heart leaped with the discovery, a moment later, that it was the Red Flier. Berdyne's flight with his helpless victim had been interrupted. If compelled to proceed on foot. Beryl could have appealed to those around her, and it would have been impossible for Berdyne to hold her against her will. How slight a thing will sometimes give ground for hope! Neil took heart of grace, and pressed onward toward Pine Street with feverish eagerness. He came at last to his destination. The awful ruin of the minister's house filled him with horror. His darling could not be there; nevertheless, he would have gone dumbly into the falling structure in the vain hope that some clue might have been left for him. "Halt!" cried a stern voic. He-whirled to find an infantryman grimly approaching him. "It is necessary for me to go in there!" cried Neil. "I will take the chances." "I will, not allow you to enter," was the determined reply. "Stand back!" "Sir," said Neil, "I was taken from there unconscious directly after the first great shock, and I have only now come from the Mechanics' Pavilion, which has been turned into a hospital. lam seeking " A strange light gleamed in the soldier's eyes. "You are seeking your wife" he interrupted. "Yes, yes!" , came from Neil, eagerly. "A beautiful girl with hair like gold, and " "Ah!" cried Neil, his heart almost bursting with the hope that suddenly fdled it, "you have seen her!" "She was here," said the soldier, "and she forced her way into the house in spite of me, to look for you." "Then she is in there, and —-" "No, no!" The soldier caught his arm, and held him back by main' strength. "She came out, looking like one whose brain has been turned by some terrible disappointment. She left not more, than live minutes since." (To be Continued.)