RIVEN ASUNDER. OR, BERYL GRAYSON'S ORDEAL,

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8386, 21 March 1907, Page 2

RIVEN ASUNDER. OR, BERYL GRAYSON'S ORDEAL,

A HOMATWE OF THE SAN FRANCISCO JJISASTBa.

Chapter xviil—Continued. Scraps of fir wore failing thickly ■outsirlf, startling proof that the coniiagration was coming c'ose to that part of Sutter Street. The thunder of dynamite explosions, too was drawing nearer. Yet stili tho two men in the room off the hall continued to talk. Neil stole a look between the damask curtains of the first arched doorway. The men were not in that apartment, but their voices came through another draped archway leading'to the drawing-room. He stepped into the first room and crossed it, his footsteps muffled by the thick carpet -on which he trod. Halting at the other curtains, he drew one a little apart and peered through. Trenwyck was there, and a lowbrowed, bull-necked scoundrel whose sodden face bore an indelible mark of, the gallows. Who could that second man be? Neil waited and listened, thinking he might secure a clue from the conversation of the precious pair. The men were sprawled in easy chairs. . A box of cigars and a decanter of wine and glasses were on a gilded table between them. Trenwyck was just lighting a cigar, but Gorsline was already smoking. Neil's clue was not long in coming. "You may be a lawyer, right enough," grunted the bull-necked ruffian, but you're a fool, for all that It wasn't no time to fill up on wine. The way you acted, no wonder the gal was scart, an' tumbled to our game." "She was bound to find it out sooner or later, Gorsline," replied Trenwyck in a half-apologetic tone. "What di ( d you do with her?" "Tied her in a chair. Didn't think I was goin' to let her go, did yer?" Gorsline! The mere sound of the ruffian's name,\ on Trenwyck's lips, fired Neil's blood. Here, then, was the man Berdyne had hired to go to Beryl with a vicious falsehood —a plausible He that had brought Beryl near to death, and caused her months of torture. > Neil's breath came short and hard, and his dark eyes gleamed with the righteous wrath that filled him. Only the importance of his hearing more of what the two villains were saying prevented him from springing out and taking terrible vengeance ,then and there. This was the first time Neil had -ever set eyes on Gorsline. The ruffian knew him by sights for Berdyne had set him to dogging Neil the very day the Argonaut had reached her home port. Grinding his teeth and smothering . his impatience, Neil waited and lis- v tened. The two had already mentiond a woman whom the hoodlum had made a prisoner. Neil's heart sickened at the thought that it might be Beryl. But, whether it was Beryl or not, he; would free the captive at all costs. "Well, no," muttered the lawyer, after a brief silence, "I didn't ,think you would let her go, Gorsline;' but, if we can't find Nick, what are we to do with her" "Durned if I know. If you could drug her, we might take her across the bay to that yacht Berdyne has chartered, or mebby to the houseboat in Belvedere Cove." "I've had enough of this drugging business,*" said Trenwyck; "and, as for getting her through the city at a time like this, it's not to be thought of. But say/' he addedi "she's a little beauty, ain't she! I've seen a good many beautiful women, but never one to compare with her." "Stow it!" snapped Gorsline. "You ought to have more sense|than to talk like that, or do what you done. - Ain't thinkin' of cuttin' Berdyne out, are you?" he added, with a sharp look. Trenwyck gave. a forced laugh. The effects of the wine 'were wearing off slowly, and he was becoming more discreet. "Nonsense!" he exclaimed. "I can admire Berdyne's taste if I want to, can't I?" i "I give you warnin', my buck, that that's as far as you'd better go with it. You didn't get any track of Berdyne while you was out lookin'?" "The town is too big, and in too much of a turmoil, to find any one. I'm wonderin' how you and I ever came together, and how chance ever enabled me to find Beryl Grayson like I did."

"There's somethin' I can't understand," observed .Gorsline. "You say she said she used to be Miss Beryl Grayson. Do you think she and Preston was married at that skypilot's house, this mornin'" But Neil had heard more than ■enough'. He had satisfied himself that his darling was really in the hands of those wretches. Without giving Trenwyck time to answer Gorsline's question, he dashed through ,the curtains. 1 "Preston!" cried Trenwyck, springing erect. "By the eternal if it ain't!" added Gorsline, " likewise leaping to his I feet. At the same time the ruffian's hand groped at the front of his shirt. Beryl's wrongs, no less than Neil's own, were crying aloud for vengeance. It was the awful purpose shining in Neil's face that prompted Gorsline to think of a weapon and reach for it. The air in the house had become well-nigh stifling. Awhiff of smoke and a low crackling as of flames followed Neil from the front apartment into the drawing-room. A sound of hurried movements reached them from without. Yet these various sights and sounds of peril claimed not the least attention from the three jnen who stood facing each othertwo of vthem glaring into each other's eyes their hate and defiance*. "You have been talking/' said Neil, his voice low, but filled with a deadly menace, "of my wife. Her fair name is not to be sullied by lips

By Mia Edwards, author of "The Little Unlaw," "Sadia, the Rosebud," "Prettiext of All:' "Stella Sterling," "Laura lirai/tan" etc.

like yours. I have heard much that has been snoken between you, and I am confident that, by the exercise of your devilish arts, you have spirited her away asid made her a prisoner. You will tell me where she is, without a moment's loss of time, or both of you shall die!" His voice rang out in the room with the last words, and Trenwyck cowered. He was a craven, at best, but Gorsline was made of sterner stuff. "You'll get nothin' from me, d'you hear?" he shouted. "When you talk about takin' a man's life, that's a game two can play at." As he finished speaking, Gorsline drew a knife from the breast of his shirt; a long, keen blade that glittered ominously as he gripped the handle and held it ready. "Not that Gorsline!" cried the frantic Trenwyck. "Preston," he added imploringly, "have a care what you do!" "Curse you for a coward!" exclaimed Gorsline, speaking to Trenwyck, but keeping his baleful eyes on Neil with cat-like vigilance. "If you try to interfere with me, I'll knife you, as well." Neil was unarmed, yet the sight of the knife in nowise dismayed him. He felt that he could take the coarse ruffian by the throat with his hands and strangle him likie a cur. Beryl, his darling wife—her liberty, perhaps her life, was at stake. The lawyer was/in fearful straits. If any harm befel this scion of the proud family of Prestons, through him, there would be a woful accounting. "This—ihis must stop right here!" went on the lawyer, thoroughly sobered now. He even plucked up courage enough to step toward the two who stood facing each other, ready for a spring and a life-and-death struggle. "Keep back!" roared Gorsline savagely. "The man that comes off best won't suffer from what happens here. Whatever deed is done will be wiped out by the fire in less'n an hour." As if to exemplify these gruesome words, the clatter of a galloping horse was heard in the street, together with the'stentorian cry: "Clear the street! We're about to dynamite! Clear the street!" The warning passed unheeded over the heads of Neil and Gorsline. They merely nerved themselves for the final struggle, realizing the necessity of having it quickly over with. Neil's sharp eyes had been measuring the situation. When he *noved,> it was with a lightning-like quickness that caught his enemy unprepared. A chair stood near. Neil caught it up, and hurled it straight at Gorsline. j The ruffian sprang back, but not swiftly enough to evade a staggering blow in the side. He still held to his knife, but, before he could recover from the effects of the blow, Neil sprang upon him. One hand went to Gorsline's throat, and the other to the hand that held the knife. Clinging to each other fiercely, the two men reeled and swayed. • Trenwyck, craven though he was, and eager to preserve his life from dynamite and fire, was yet held to the scene by a horrid fascination. He could not go, although he knew he was in deadly peril every moment he stayed. . . "Don't you'hear?" he demanded feebly. "They're going to use dynamite in this block, perhaps in this very building!" If he could have done so, Trenwyck would have crossed to the door leading into the library and released Beryl. But the door was secured, and the key was in Gorsline's possession. To go out by the front door, pass around to the side of the house, and enter the library by one of the windows would have been feasible; but in that dread moment the idea never occurred to the lawyer. For a full minute the combatants stood struggling back and forth, Gorsline powerless to free himself and slowly choking; then the ruffian, with a despairing call upon every particle of his strength, pushed forward, and forced his lighter antagonist back. Au overturned chair was behind Neil. He ; did not see it, and he could not have guarded himself against it if he had seen it. He fell at full length, and Gorsline, shaking the strangling clutch from his throat, dropped down upon him with a horrid shout of triumph. "Now it is my turn!" he cried, his purplish face writhing with insane fury. (To be Continued.)