Produced by Annie McGuire
[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]
Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.
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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1895. FIVE CENTS A COPY.
VOL. XVI.--NO. 824. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.
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[Illustration]
THE STORY OF NOEL DUVAL.
BY FRANCIS STERNE PALMER.
The summer of 1814 was a troubled one for the people living in northern
New York. English troops were concentrating at points just across the
Canadian border, and there were rumors that they would soon invade the
territory of the States. The farmers were being hastily drilled into
militia companies--train-bands, as they were called; the women were
anxious and frightened; the boys shared the general excitement, and were
busy drilling.
Early one warm July evening four persons were sitting in the little
lattice-covered portico of a cottage in the outskirts of one of the
larger villages near the Canadian border. The most noticeable of the
little group was Madam Marston, an old lady, tall and straight, one of
the type that furnished the New England pioneers with wives as hardy and
brave as themselves. On the bench on the other side of the portico sat
her daughter; the Widow Duval, a slender, gentle woman, but with the
same look of determination in her fine gray eyes. Close to her side was
Noel Duval, a boy of about fifteen, whose dark skin and keen aquiline
features came from his French Canadian father, but who had his mother's
eyes. The sharpness of the boy's features was emphasized by the thinness
of his face, which was pinched, as if by suffering. While a child he had
met an accident that had brought on a long illness, and left one arm
withered and almost helpless. His sister, little Ninette, nestled close
to her stately grandmother.
"Mother," the boy was saying, "Abram Dodds made me very angry to-day. He
said I was not an American, because my father was not, and because I
have always lived in Canada."
"I wouldn't mind what the boys say. When they know you better I'm sure
they'll stop trying to tease you." She laid her hand on his shoulder as
if to check his impatience.
"Nay, daughter," interposed the older woman, her eyes flashing, "let him
stand up for himself--if he can. Because you chose, against my wishes,
to marry a Canadian is no reason why the boy should be sneered at. Was
not his grandfather, Caleb Marston, as good a soldier as fought in the
Revolution, and a captain, too? Let the boy stand up for himself, say
I!"
His mother only stroked the boy's hair soothingly. "Bide your time,
Noel," she whispered; "your chance will come, and in the mean time keep
guard over that quick temper of yours. Remember you must be strong to
take care of us all--Ninette, and your grandmother, and me--and a quick
unruly temper ever means weakness."
"I'll not forget," said Noel. "But still, it angers me to be told I'm
not an American. If my arm would only get stronger, I could be a soldier
like grandfather, and prove that I'm an American. I am, really, am I
not? for I was born in this country before my father took you back to
his home in Canada."
Noel got up and walked off down the road toward the field where the boys
held their drills. In spite of his weak arm he thought he could manage
well enough in the drilling, and he was anxious to be asked to join a
military company the boys had organized. This evening there had come
together about twenty boys, all of whom lived on the neighboring farms.
Their drill-ground was a level piece of pasture-land, bordered on one
side by the forest, which in those times stretched far away to the
north, even to the banks of the St. Lawrence River.
When they saw Noel coming toward them the boys had just finished one of
their evolutions and were resting, leaning on the wooden staffs which
served them instead of real muskets. Jacobus Boonter, who was captain,
had a real sword--one that his grandfather, Ensign Dirk Boonter, had
carried in the war of the Revolution. The boys had much respect for the
old sword, especially when Jacobus pointed out some spots on it that
looked as if they might be blood-stains.
"Captain," said one of the boys, "there comes Noel Duval. You know, he
came here with his mother from Canada only two months ago, and they live
with old Widow Marston on her little farm. He only has one good arm, but
to-day he wanted to fight Abram Dodds for saying he was not an American.
Shall we let him join the company? I know he wants to."
Broad-faced Jacobus shook his head gravely.
"No, I think we'd better not. He's so lately from Canada that he may be
an English spy. You can't be too careful. They say he talks French.
Besides, he's only one good arm. No, I think we'd best not have him. I
don't trust him, and a one-armed soldier wouldn't be good for anything,
anyway."
"Well, I'd trust him," said the first speaker, "and I know him better
than the rest of you do. It's true he's lived in Canada, and when he was
there he learned lots of clever things about the woods, too; but he
feels that this is his country, and he's just as good an American as any
of us."
However, the opinions of Captain Jacobus prevailed, and when Noel came
up he was treated in so cool a way by most of the boys that at first he
felt very angry; but he remembered to check his temper. He remained and
watched the drill, in spite of their evident intention to treat him as
an outsider.
Soon it got so dark that the boys had to stop drilling. They were lying
about on the ground near the edge of the woods, resting a little before
they parted, when of a sudden thirty or forty men, each leading a pony,
loomed out of the dusk. They were walking rapidly, and keeping close to
the forest. The startled boys remained quiet, and the men did not see
them till they were close upon them.
"Hello! What's this?" exclaimed the one who seemed the leader. "Here,
you little rascals, don't you stir! Not a word--not a move!"
The boys were frightened into complete submission, and lay huddled on
the ground staring at the new-comers. These, with the exception of the
leader, who wore the uniform of an English officer, were all dressed in
deer-skin suits, with fur caps and moccasins. The boys saw that they had
been captured by a band of the dreaded Canadian scouts--about whose
Indianlike ferocity many tales were told--and most of the young warriors
trembled with fright. Jacobus tried to say something, but his voice
broke, and the attempt ended in an ignominious mixture of gulp and sob.
"You won't be hurt if you keep quiet," said the officer, trying not to
smile when he saw Jacobus and his big sword. His voice grew stern as he
went on: "Pierre and Antoine, you stay and guard these boys. If one
moves you are to shoot him. Remember that order, boys; remember also
that my scouts always obey. Be careful, Pierre, to let none of them
escape to give the alarm. Join us when you hear firing. Come on, the
rest of you."
In a moment the stealthy company of scouts, leading their ponies, that
stepped carefully, as if they too understood the need of quiet, were
gone. The boys would have thought it all an apparition if the two
stalwart Canadians, Pierre and Antoine, had not been there to prove they
had not been dreaming. The two scouts talked together for a short time
in Canadian French; then, while the one called Pierre stood guard with
his rifle, Antoine picketed their two ponies, and next began to picket
the boys--that is, he tied together the wrists and ankles of each one,
using some long thongs of deer-skin which he and Pierre carried wound
round their waists. When all were securely tied the two scouts stretched
themselves out on the grass, and, paying little further attention to
their trembling prisoners, began talking--none of the boys save Noel
could understand French.
"How long must we wait here with these wretched youngsters?" said
Pierre.
"It will take an hour or more for them to encircle the village; and that
must be done before the attack is made."
"And we must lose it all! It's a shame. Well, they ought to give us a
better chance when--" Here he dropped his voice so low that Noel could
hear no more.
While Noel's ears had been busy, his fingers had not been idle. With the
deftness and patience born of his forest training in Canada he had
worked at the knots that bound him, and had at last succeeded, with the
help of the darkness, in untying them. He lay just at the forest's edge,
and it required only one sudden spring to carry him into the underbrush.
The leap had been a quick one, but Pierre's sharp eyes had seen the
boy's first movement; and as Noel crashed into the bushes, the scout's
knife--which he wore at his belt, and which he could throw as an Indian
throws the tomahawk--glanced through the air, severing a twig close to
the boy's cheek. Noel made two or three long leaps, then crouched down,
and, feeling along the earth, found a heavy stick, and flung it crashing
into the bushes at one side.
Pierre, leaving Antoine to guard the others, had sprung after Noel; he
carried his rifle, which had lain by his side, wrapped in his jacket to
protect it from the dew. It was very dark under the thick evergreens;
and as Pierre, misled by the sound of the stick, went a few yards to one
side, Noel rose and moved away, his moccasins making as little noise as
do the furry feet of a Canada lynx creeping up to a moose. But even a
lynx sometimes stirs a twig that rustles a dead leaf, and now this
happened to Noel. Pierre's ears caught a slight sound; instantly he made
out the crouching figure, and, throwing his rifle to his shoulder,
fired. Thanks to the darkness, the bullet missed, but whizzed so close
to the boy's head that the concussion almost stunned him. Yet he felt
like shouting for joy, for the scout, his muzzle-loading rifle empty and
his knife gone, was practically unarmed.
"Have you got him?" cried Antoine, from the open.
"Not yet," shouted back Pierre. "But I'll have him, alive or dead. He
sha'n't get away!"
Noel, knowing that there was now neither knife nor bullet to follow him,
had leaped forward, running like a deer. The scout sprang after him not
twenty yards behind. The little forest creatures that run about at
night--weasels and sables and hares--scrambled out of their way, and
crouched down, wondering at them as they came dashing by.
The two were not unequally matched; for while the scout had the
advantage in strength, Noel was the more agile. His small size was also
of great advantage, as any one who has tried to run through the woods
will understand. The low-growing branches of trees did not trouble the
boy as they did the tall Pierre, who several times measured his length
upon the ground.
They went on for what seemed a long time to the man and boy plunging
through the underbrush of the woods, but which was probably not more
than half an hour. By that time Noel felt that his strength was fast
going. He was breathing painfully, and had been forced to slacken his
pace, when he came upon what at first seemed a thick growth of bushes;
as he broke through he found that it was a brush fence which some farmer
had built through the woods to enlarge his pasture. The boy, agile and
light, had little trouble; but Pierre fared worse, and before he could
struggle through the brush and the tops of fallen trees that composed
the fence, Noel had doubled the distance between them.
As Noel hurried on as fast as he was able he was startled by some large
animal, which he stumbled upon just as it was getting to its feet; it
too was frightened, and ran on ahead. Noel saw that it was one of the
farmer's heifers. Here was an opportunity to mislead his pursuer, and
the boy dropped to the ground by the side of a log and lay perfectly
quiet. Pierre, out of breath, and struggling to make up the ground he
had lost, kept on after the heifer, thinking it was Noel. As he leaped
over the log, he was so near the prostrate figure that his foot actually
touched the boy's jacket.
As soon as the Canadian was out of hearing, Noel jumped up and started
toward the clearing, which he knew was near by. There was no time to
lose, for Pierre must soon find out his mistake and return. In a few
minutes Noel reached the edge of the wood, and far off across the fields
saw a black shaft in the starlight, the spire of the village church. It
was fully three miles away; for he had been running from the village,
rather than toward it. The attack, he knew, would be made within an
hour.
There was a stretch of nearly a mile across the fields before a road
could be reached. Noel, tired from his dash through the woods, started
forward across the uneven pasture-land. In spite of his anxiety, he
laughed to himself at the thought of Pierre's feelings when he should
discover that he was chasing only a frightened cow.
As he hurried on as fast as his tired legs would carry him, it seemed to
his strained senses that an unnatural and forbidding hush pervaded the
warm night. Even the notes of whippoorwills that came from the bushes
near the forest sounded less loud than usual, and seemed to foretell a
calamity. The hares and other animals that come out in the darkness had
hidden themselves.
Finally he came to the road that led on to the village, still two miles
away. There was little danger of being overtaken by Pierre; but there
was a chance of his being seen by the sentinels that the raiders might
station on the roads leading to the village. He could not go faster than
a slow trot now, and he was panting painfully. His moccasin-clad feet
ploughed through the dust, striking against the stones in the rough
road. He thought, a little bitterly, that the other boys were right if
they believed that he was not really able-bodied; the accident that had
hurt his arm had weakened him in every way. However, he plodded on
steadily, resolved that determination should take the place, as far as
possible, of bodily strength.
He had gone perhaps half the way when there was the sound of a horse's
hoofs coming from the direction of the village. He crouched down in the
shadow of some bushes, and waited. In a moment the horse and its rider
came in sight, and by the dim light Noel recognized the village doctor,
old Mr. Hedding, astride his white pony. Noel stepped into the road in
front of the pony.
"It's only I, doctor; Noel Duval, grandson to the Widow Marston," he
said, in a whisper. "Don't make any noise! Was everything quiet at the
village when you left?"
"Quiet as usual, and that's quiet enough, for certain. But what's the
matter, lad? Why are you stopping people in the high-road in this way?
And why are you trembling and panting so? That's not like a highwayman."
"They're going to attack the village--raiders from Canada! There's no
time to explain! But you must let me have the pony! I'm all tired
out--and I must get to the village!"
For a moment the doctor scrutinized the boy's face. Then he got down
from the pony. "I was going to farmer Tonwell's, who's down with his
rheumatism again, but he shall wait. I wouldn't do this at every boy's
word, but you look as if you know what you're about, and I will take the
chance."
Already Noel had sprung to the saddle and turned the pony back toward
the village.
"Look out for my saddle-bags," said the doctor. "There's enough costly
drugs in them to kill all the English in Canada. I'll follow on slowly,
and 'twill go hard with you if you've been trifling with me."
But the boy was out of hearing. It seemed as if Providence had come to
the aid of his weak body, and Noel, with renewed hope of reaching the
village in time to give the alarm, urged on the sturdy white pony.
They had almost reached the outskirts of the little town when a man on
horseback rode into the middle of the road, and confronting Noel,
ordered him to stop. Noel thought he recognized the dress of the
Canadian scouts. He bent low on the saddle and struck the pony sharply.
An instant later a rifle blazed in his face. Then he realized that in
some way the white pony had got by the other horse and was galloping
down the road, terrified by the rifle's flash. The scout's pony was
close behind.
The white pony was running as it had not done since it was a colt in
lower Canada, and had carried its habitant master in many a race, and
won them, too. Noel was conscious of a feeling of exultation; for he saw
that the scout was losing ground. He cried out to his pursuer in French,
and started to wave his hand in a derisive farewell. The effort caused a
sharp pain to shoot through his arm, and he found that his hand and
wrist were covered with blood. The scout's bullet had torn its way
through the flesh of his forearm.
He grew very faint, and had to clutch the saddle tightly with his knees
to keep from falling. His weak arm had served to hold the reins, but it
was good for little else. He was so dizzy that he could hardly see, and
he only dimly realized that he was close to the streams of light coming
from the windows of the village tavern. The sound of a galloping horse
brought several men to the tavern door.
"Raiders from Canada are coming! They're close by!" he gasped, then his
head swam round and he fell from the saddle. After that there was much
shouting and hurrying to and fro, and finally the beating of a drum and
the quick clang of the bell in the village church. But Noel, stretched
out on a table in the tavern, was undisturbed by all the turmoil.
* * * * *
Even Congress heard of what had occurred that warm July night by the
Canadian border, and when the war was ended, Noel Duval was remembered
in such a substantial way that he was able to provide a good home for
his mother and the old Widow Marston and for little Ninette, and to keep
poverty from ever again pinching them.
One day in the autumn, Noel, who was now quite well of his wound, was
asked to come to the drill-ground. Jacobus Boonter met him, and led him
to where the company of boys were drawn up in line. "Noel Duval," he
said, "we ask you if you will please be our captain?"
THE LAZY HOUR.
So bright are the branches,
The shadows so cool,
So dark is the water,
So deep is the pool,
So hard is the lesson,
So hot is the school--
If I were the son of a merman
I never should hear of a rule!
Light as the arrow
Springs from the bow,
Off the big ledges
Down I should go
Into the hollow
Whose secret I know,
Up I should come like a bubble,
Shake off the water and blow!
Now for a breast stroke
Under the tide--
Arm o'er arm sweeping
I float on my side;
Deep in green crystal
Slowly I slide.
There goes the class up in Caesar!
I wish I'd a corner to hide!
HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.
ARTIFICIAL ICE.
Sign-boards bearing the legend "Boston ice" over the doors of cellars
and other places where ice was kept for sale have long been a familiar
sight in the South. During the last twelve years, however, nearly every
Southern town of importance has established its own factory for making
ice, and the process has become so perfect and cheap that the artificial
ice competes with the natural article shipped from the New England
States.
The cost of transportation, handling, and enormous waste by melting
serves to make "Boston ice" a costly luxury to the Southern consumer.
This has stimulated the invention of improved methods of making
artificial ice.
On his first visit to an ice factory, one who is not familiar with
ice-making machinery will be surprised to see large steam-engines and
boilers, with great piles of coal, and will wonder how the use of fire
and steam can assist in producing cold; but a little understanding of
the chemistry of the process will enable him to perceive the need of
such machinery.
All objects contain a certain amount of heat. The capacity for retaining
this heat varies in different substances. Liquids retain more than
solids, and gases more than liquids. If gases be compressed, their
heat-retaining capacity will be reduced in proportion. Nearly all of the
known gases may be compressed until they assume the liquid form. Gas
made from ammonia when subjected to a pressure of about one hundred and
fifty pounds to the square inch, becomes a liquid. Should the pressure
be now removed, the liquid ammonia will instantly rush into gas again,
and in doing so tries to absorb the heat which has been squeezed out of
it.
[Illustration: AN ICE "CAN."]
If this expansion into gas be allowed to take place in pipes sunk in
brine, it will draw all the heat out of the brine, and cause the brine
to become cold enough to freeze fresh water in cans suspended in it, and
convert the fresh water in the cans into solid ice.
In the factories which freeze the water in cans there is provided a very
large brine-chamber or vat, so deep that the cans may be immersed in it
nearly to their tops. The cans are about four feet deep, and are made of
galvanized iron. They are filled with pure water, and let down into the
brine through openings in the top of the vat. Between the rows of
water-cans are tiers of iron pipes running back and forth through the
brine, and throughout these pipes the expansion of gas takes place,
cooling the brine to ten degrees below zero. Ice soon begins to form on
the inside and bottom of the cans under the influence of this intense
cold. It becomes thicker and thicker, until it is finally a solid mass
of clear crystal ice, usually with a small core of opaque or snowy ice,
exactly through the centre.
As fast as their contents are frozen the cans are removed by a special
lifting apparatus, and dipped for a minute into hot water to loosen the
block from the can. Then it slides out easily, and is stored away for
use.
There are other factories conducted on a somewhat different plan from
the foregoing, in which the ice is made to form on iron plates, in cakes
weighing several tons each.
In such factories the brine-chamber is in the shape of double partition
walls of iron plates, about four inches apart. The partition divides a
deep wooden water-tank into two equal rooms, and in the narrow space
between the iron plates the brine and pipes for the ammonia gas are
placed. The rooms are filled with pure water, which is in contact with
the brine-chamber on one side. Ice soon begins to form on the iron side
plates, precisely in the same way as on a pond or river, except that the
sheet of ice is vertical instead of horizontal. Only about half of the
water in the rooms is allowed to freeze.
[Illustration: A BLOCK OF MANUFACTURED ICE.]
When the cakes of ice are considered to be of sufficient thickness, the
cold brine is pumped out of its compartment into another tank, and its
place is filled with water of ordinary temperature. This soon thaws the
ice cakes loose from the plates, and allows the mass of ice to be lifted
out by hoisting machinery. The ice is then passed on to the
sawing-machine, which divides it into blocks weighing about two hundred
pounds each. The only essential difference in the two systems described
lies in the fact that in the can method all the water is frozen, and if
there be any impurity in the water the ice will contain it. In the plate
method the ice is formed entirely from one side of the cake, and only
about one-half of the water is allowed to congeal into solid ice. Since
water, in freezing, tends to purify itself in the way in which the
natural ice of ponds and rivers purifies itself, the plate method more
nearly resembles the natural way, and the ice shows its characteristic
structure.
After having performed its work in cooling the brine, the expanded gas
is drawn from the pipes by means of powerful steam-pumps, and it is then
compressed into a coil of iron pipes kept immersed in a tank of cold
running water. This compression of the expanded gas requires very heavy
machinery, and the operation develops much heat, which is absorbed by
the running water. In other words, the expanding gas having absorbed
much heat from the brine, and having been made cold by this means, must
be deprived of the heat thus gained by compression again into a coil
surrounded by running water, which takes away the heat as soon as it is
developed by compression.
Being now restored to the liquid form, the gas is ready to go on another
round, and may be used again and again. The only loss of gas sustained
is from leaky joints in the pipes.
It is a curious sight to see these pipes and pumps, even in the hottest
weather, all coated with a thick layer of snow-white frost, so thick
that it may be scraped off with the hands and squeezed into a snowball.
The brine-pumps soon lose their characteristic shape, and are scarcely
recognizable, looking more like a fantastic snow-drift than a piece of
iron machinery.
[Illustration: A BLOCK THAT STOOD SOME TIME IN THE SUN.]
Sometimes we see fine fruit or a bouquet of handsome flowers which had
been so placed in the water as to become frozen in the centre of a large
block of crystal ice. Such objects form beautiful ornaments while they
last.
Many people believe that coal is really at the foundation of cheap ice,
and that it will presently be cheaper to use coal to make ice than to
use it in transporting ice to the place where it is wanted. Artificial
ice is already produced in considerable quantities in districts where
natural ice is also cut for the market.
GRANDFATHER'S ADVENTURES.
AS A PIRATE.
"Ralph," said Grandfather Sterling, one winter's evening, as they sat
together before a fire of crackling logs, and listened with a dreamy
sense of snugness and comfort to the howlings of the storm without, "did
I ever tell you about the time that I was a pirate?"
"Grandpop!" exclaimed the startled boy, "you don't mean to say that you
were once a real pirate, the kind that rob people and cut their throats
and all that, just like the story of Captain Kidd in my school Reader?"
Grandfather Sterling nodded his head in assent.
"Yes, Ralph, your grandfather once sailed under the black-flag having a
white skull and cross-bones painted on it, and, what is more, he was a
member of the crew of the pirate schooner _Dragon_, commanded by Captain
Brand, the most notorious pirate that ever cruised among the West India
Islands."
An amused smile crept over the old sea-captain's face, and his eyes
twinkled mischievously as he detected his nephew's horrified, pained,
and reproachful look.
"Well, Ralph," said his grandfather, with an affected air of shame and
remorse, "I'll tell you how it happened:
"You see, it was my second voyage as boy on board of the brig _Saucy_,
commanded by Captain Abraham Smith, belonging down Salem way in
Massachusetts, and trading between that port and the West Indies. We
left harbor one summer morning, loaded with all kinds of hardy
vegetables, which we expected to exchange in Cuba for sugar. After a
fortnight at sea we sighted San Salvador Island, belonging to the Bahama
group, which island, by-the-way, was the first land that Columbus
discovered on his great voyage. That afternoon we were sailing along
past Crooked Island, which lies just to the southward of San Salvador,
when a trim-looking schooner with very tall masts, on which were spread
enormous fore-and-aft sails, stood out from under the lee of the land,
and came down rapidly upon us. Knowing that we could not escape from
her, the stranger openly showed his colors--the pirate's black-flag. We
crowded every stitch of canvas on the poor little _Saucy_, but in less
than an hour the pirate was so close that his shot commenced to carry
away our spars and rigging.
"'Men,' said our Captain, 'there's no good in trying to escape, so let
us heave to. Perhaps when he finds out that our cargo is of no value he
will let us go our way.'
"Well, we shortened sail at once, and put our wheel down, waiting for
the enemy to board us. Seeing that we had given up the race, the pirate
kept getting in his light sails as he swept down on us, and after he had
forged ahead a little he tacked ship, leaving his jib to windward, and
so laid hove to. Immediately one of his boats pulled out from under the
lee of the schooner, and a minute later was alongside of us.
"Preceded by a fair, handsome, lightly built man, who proved to be none
other than Captain Brand, a dozen swarthy, evil-looking pirates, armed
to the teeth, tumbled over the rail. Captain Smith stepped forward to
address the chief, but was immediately cut down with a cutlass wielded
by the latter, who haughtily remarked,
"'Excuse me, I've no time for conversation.'
"The pirate's action was a signal to his men, and before our crew could
offer the slightest resistance they shared the master's fate. A
wicked-looking scoundrel with an ugly scar across his cheek made a
savage swing at me with his sword, but before the blow could fall the
pirate's cutlass was sent flying from his grasp, and he uttered a shriek
of pain and seized his arm where Brand's blow had fallen.
"'I don't make war on children,' was all that the Captain said.
"Fifteen minutes later the _Saucy_ had been ransacked and set on fire,
and sick at heart I was on board the schooner, having been given to
understand that my name had been entered as a pirate's apprentice, and
that I was a regular member of the crew and must obey orders.
"At once the word was passed to get the vessel under way, and I found
myself trailing on to the fore-topsail halyards alongside of a
sad-looking lad of about my own age, who was addressed by the men as
Dick, and who, I took it rightly, had been forced to join the _Dragon_
under similar conditions to my own.
"That night we two found ourselves in the same watch, and, after
answering to roll-call, we stowed ourselves away between two of the guns
and exchanged confidences. Later on we talked over various plans to gain
our freedom. Dick informed me that the schooner was on her way to the
pirates' stronghold, where he had been once before, on the island of
Tortugas, there to divide the spoils of the voyage, and to gamble and
carouse for several days before starting on another expedition.
"Two days later we reached the island in a small securely locked bay on
the western side. After lowering and furling the sails, a chest about
two feet square was brought out on deck, and its contents, consisting of
gold and silver, money and jewels, were divided among the men by Captain
Brand. After that a barrel of rum was lowered into the long boat, and
the crew entered her and rowed away, leaving the Captain and we two boys
the only ones on board.
"Late in the evening Captain Brand ordered Dick to row him ashore, and I
was left alone. About an hour later Dick sculled the boat quietly
alongside out of the darkness, climbed on board, and addressed me in an
excited whisper:
"'Now's our time, Sterling; the Captain has gone up to his shore house
and thinks I'm waiting for him on the beach; we will cut the cable, and
the wind will set us out of the bay; they can't follow us, for I've sent
their boat adrift, with the plug pulled out so that it will sink!'
"While Dick ran to the wheel I jumped forward and sawed my knife through
the anchor hawser, and immediately saw the schooner's head falling off
against the stars under the influence of the easterly wind. In a quarter
of an hour we were outside the mouth of the harbor and drifting to the
westward. We knew that we never could hoist the sails and handle the
vessel to sail anywhere, and that if a gale sprang up we would probably
founder; but these dangers could not rob us of great happiness, for we
realized that we were free from the pirates' clutches.
"During the night we took turns at steering the schooner so as to keep
her before the wind, but just before daybreak it fell a flat calm. When
the sun rose Dick was the first to see a large man-of-war about a mile
away on our beam, also lying becalmed. They made us out at the same
time, and evidently disliking our looks they fitted out three large
launches with guns in their bows, and pulled toward us. When they got
within hailing distance we told our story. One of the boats then came
alongside and took possession of the pirate craft. Dick and I were then
sent off to the cruiser to tell our story to her Captain.
"Well, Ralph, to make a long story short, the commander of the
man-of-war determined to take the pirates by surprise, if possible, so
he stood off to the northeast all day to get the island under his lee,
and when night fell he crowded on sail and ran for the place that we had
escaped from twenty-four hours before. We made the entrance to the
harbor about midnight, and while the man-of-war remained hove to, all
the boats were fitted out and sent in to the bay.
"About an hour later we heard the sound of distant firing, and toward
morning the boats returned with all the officers and men safe and sound,
who stated that they had found the pirates stupefied with drink, and had
made short work of the gang. Captain Brand, however, had not been seen,
and it was supposed that he had escaped to the interior of the island.
"Now, Ralph, you have the history of your grandfather at the time he was
a pirate and sailed under the black-flag with Captain Brand, the
notorious robber chief."
CORPORAL FRED.[1]
A Story of the Riots.
BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.
CHAPTER IV.
Four miles away, in the heart of the great city, a throng of men and
women and children surrounded the massive stone walls, and peered up at
the narrow windows of a formidable-looking building, from whose lofty
flag-staff the Stars and Stripes were fluttering in the fresh lake
breeze--a crowd even denser than that we saw in the distant dusty yards.
Here, too, among them were faces grave with anxiety. Here, too, among
the women were eyes red with tears; but here all was silence and order.
Suddenly from within the huge brown walls there rose the shrill summons
of the bugle, sounding in quick, spirited call the well-known
"assembly," and in company rooms, crowded to suffocation by wives,
mothers, sisters, sweethearts, and friends of the guardsmen, the men of
the --th regiment fell in for roll-call. Almost at the same moment, in
other sections of the city, the same signal called two other commands to
their ranks. The State was waking up at last, but waking up in earnest.
Down in the paved court below the chargers of the field and staff
officers were awaiting their riders, every swish of their tails slashing
the faces of boys and men wedged in an almost solid mass about them.
Orders had been given that only members of the regiment and people
having important business with its officers should be allowed within the
walls; but the summons for duty had reached over eight hundred of its
men while still at their places of business downtown. There was no time
to go home, and the Colonel could not resist the pleas that came from
without. First by threes and fours, then by dozens, scores, and finally
in one uninterrupted stream, relatives and friends, followed by mere
curiosity-seekers, swept past the guarded gates, until the great
interior was packed, and there was no room for more. Before it was
possible to form the command in the big drill-hall the guards had to
clear the court, then drive all men and boys into the space thus
redeemed, and post a solid section across the sally-port to hold it
against further ingress. It was 3.50 when the Colonel was handed his
orders, and touched the button that flashed the summons to each company
commander. It was just 5.45 when he reported his command in readiness,
and just 6.30 when, amidst a storm of cheers, tears, and God-speeds,
through a flashing sea of white handkerchiefs he guided his startled,
spirited horse, and followed by his staff and a solid column of fours,
eight hundred strong, turned into the broad avenue and led the way. No
exultant strain of martial music, no gayly decked bandsmen at the head
of the regiment; only the hoarse throb of the drums. No nodding plumes
and snowy helmets, cross-belts, trousers. This was war's array,
magnificently stern, but as magnificently simple. Officers and men alike
wore the drab slouch hat of the regulars in the field, and the sombre
blouses of dark blue, the broad drab ammunition belt, crammed with
copper cartridges, the brown equipments, haversacks, leggings, etc., all
without an atom of show or tinsel. Even the popular idea of glittering
bayonet and gleaming musket seemed rebuked, for the sloping Springfields
were brown and businesslike as the belts and leggings. Out they strode
with steady swinging step, and the heart of the great city seemed to
leap to its throat, the spray of the eastward billows to its blinking
eyes, for riot, insurrection, defiance to law and order, peace and
security, had again burst forth, and were raging every instant nearer
and nearer its very vitals. Police and sheriff had grappled or cajoled
in vain, and here at last was its right arm--the hope and strength and
pride of house and home, the pet regiment of the Western metropolis was
being sent to check the torrent where it raged its maddest, through that
mile-long reach of the Great Western yards. "Eight hundred strong with
more a-coming," as the papers put it, the --th went swinging down the
applauding avenue to face far more than ten times its weight in foes. No
wonder women wept and waved their hands, and strong men prayed as they
said God-speed and good-by.
Out to the rioters flashed the news of the muster. Trainmen, switchmen,
one and all, knew the coming force. Many a time had they carried them to
the summer encampments in the interior of the State. More than once
within the year had they hurried them away to the scene of some mad
outbreak among the mines and iron-works. The masses of the mob might
hoot and jeer and cry derision and boast of the reception they would
give the "dudes," the "tin soldiers"; but these railway men, schooled
themselves in lessons of order and discipline, knew the stern stuff of
which the regiment was really made. Already the thinking men among them
had begun to edge away, leaving only an occasional crack-brained
enthusiast like Farley in the crowd. Long since had the promoters of the
row, such restless agitators as Steinman and Frenzal, slipped off to
shelter, where neither bullet nor bayonet could reach them, but where
they could dictate further violence and plan madder schemes. Over about
the deserted shops, away from the mad tumult of the yards, numbers of
the strikers stood in gloomy contemplation of the wreck, but taking no
further part in the proceedings. Work had been suspended during the day,
for such was the need of old and trusted hands in the passenger stations
and on the abandoned switch-engines that other foremen besides stern old
Wallace had been called away, and these were stalwarts to whom the
strikers had appealed in vain. Struck between the eyes by a coupling-pin
while handling the lever of a switch-engine an hour before, Mr. Ainslie,
the master-mechanic of the Air Line, had just been borne by in an
ambulance: and Wallace, looking even older, sadder, sterner, than he did
at dawn, bore down upon the muttering shamefaced group as he returned
for his coat, hanging there on its accustomed peg in the darkening
shops. Something of the smouldering fire in his eyes seemed to overawe
them, for they gave way in sullen silence, many of them turning to avoid
the glower of the old Scotchman's gaze, and let him by without a word.
There were those among them who earlier in the day could have cried him
shame for his blunt refusal to either strike or sympathize. Stoltz, who
called upon him with fiery words and fierce gesticulation at ten
o'clock, had been told to go and stay. At one, when men were needed to
man the engines, he had sent word to Jim to come and take his place in a
cab and handle the lever like a man, or keep out of his sight till he
could behave like one: and as no Jim came, the father himself manned the
throttle of the first engine to force a way to the yards, just in time
to see his beloved son shot down, apparently by the senseless folly of a
deputy trained neither to aim nor to endure. His heart was hot against
the leaders who had brought this madness on the men he had known and
almost swayed for years, and he could not refrain from harsh invective
now. Halting short, he turned upon the sullen group.
"Are you satisfied with your work now, you blind, misguided fools? Have
you gained one point? You've struck down--killed, perhaps--the best man
that ever handled a wrench in these shops. You've stoned my flesh and
blood. Why don't you mob me? I would have run that engine back until
every track was clear had I had my way. Why don't you mob me? I begged
Mr. Williams to let me go and fetch away those trains, car by car, if
need be. Why don't you mob me, I say? Your advisers are frauds, and you
are fools or worse. Look there at your doing!" he cried, pointing to the
heaping wreck up the long lines of rail.
They would not answer him. Some already realized the extent of their
blunder; others, sullen and disheartened, knew not how. All seemed to
start and turn as though at sound of a familiar voice, when a man
stepped from the open office door and began to speak, calmly at first,
then with growing resonance and effect, as though he were again upon the
rostrum preaching to the oppressed.
"No one would willingly harm you, Mr. Wallace: no one would knowingly
have injured Mr. Ainslie. Our people, even when wronged and
down-trodden, respect gray hairs, but the time has come when even
patience has its limit. We are not the wreckers yonder, though we well
might be. All that is the work of a great sympathetic people, long
protesting against the tyranny to which we have bowed in the past. We
would have spared the road and its officials as we have spared you, but
let me say to you now the blow that downed your son was a blessing in
disguise, for had he joined those coming minions of the
government--those fancy soldiers of the aristocratic wards--I would not
be answerable for what might happen, not only to him, but to you and
yours."
Wallace let the speaker finish before he strode a long step nearer.
[Illustration: "YOU MADE THOSE THREATS LAST NIGHT," HE THUNDERED.]
"You made those threats last night," he thundered, shaking his bony
forefinger under the other's rubicund nose. "I know your voice, and I
want to know your name. Who are you, I say, who have come here sowing
seeds of riot among honest men? You dare not give your name, and these
men will not. My own son said he could not tell me. No man afraid or
ashamed of his name was ever in honest work. I answer you that if he
hasn't gone already, just so soon as he can stir my boy shall take his
place, musket in hand, and you and yours may do your cowardly worst."
"You've had fair warning, Mr. Wallace," said the stranger, backing
uneasily away from the menacing hand of the old mechanic. "You've done
enough already to merit mobbing, as you call it, and it was our mercy
and our forbearance that spared you in the cab this day. But as for
those who live in this suburb and have gone to join the gang of
organized murder, and, under the guise of militia-men, to shoot down
their suffering brothers, may Heaven help them if they once again show
their faces here!"
And even as the speaker finished, over in the yards, beyond the long
line of brown freight cars, went up a yell of wrath, a savage sort of
cheer that seemed to carry a shudder with it, a sound as of the rush of
a thousand feet, and presently men came darting under or scrambling upon
the cars, and gazing eagerly through or over the high picket-fence that
separated them from the shop enclosure. Catching sight of the gathering
at the main entrance, and recognizing some familiar form, many among
them began to gesticulate, and cries were heard of "There he is!"
"Traitor!" "Scab!" "Scoundrel!" And fists were clinched, and clubs were
brandished, and more men clambered to the car roofs, and boys beat upon
the fence with stones, and shouted shrill taunt and insult.
"You hear?" said the stranger. "They're talking about you now, and the
traitor work you've done this day. Will you go to your home and stay
there, and see to it that Fred makes no attempt to join his regiment?
Will you promise--promise to pull no throttle, handle no tool, until
this trouble's ended?"
"Will I deal or dicker with such as you, do you dare to think?" burst in
old Wallace, mad with indignation. "Out of my way, or I'll handle a tool
to some purpose. Stand aside and let me go where I belong," he ordered,
for the man stood at the doorway as though to oppose his passage, but
the fire and fury in the Scotchman's eye appalled him, and instinctively
he drew aside. Then with something like the snort of a Highland stag, in
sheer contempt the foreman strode by and into the gloomy, unlighted
shops, just as Jim, with alarm and misery in his face, came panting to
the spot.
"For goodness sake, don't let them touch the old man, fellows! Think how
he's worked for the road for years before we were born. It's like home
to him. You'd feel as he does if you'd worked for it so long. Stoltz has
been making a speech inciting them to mob him. They're coming now. Speak
to them, Mr. Steinman," he implored the stranger. "Speak to them, and
stand them off."
"It's his own folly," said Steinman, waving Jim aside, and starting to
get out of the road. "I've pleaded with him--warned him to no purpose.
He insulted me--threatened to split my skull. Ask these men here," he
continued, and the nodding heads and murmured words of the by-standers
gave quick assent. "I promised him protection if he'd simply agree to go
home and stay there, and keep that fool of a brother of yours from
joining his regiment."
"He couldn't promise that," protested Jim, all breathless with anxiety
and grief. Already a crowd of rioters were surging through the gate a
hundred yards away, and coming threateningly towards them. "The moment
Fred could get his head dressed he left. He's gone two hours ago."
"Gone!" cried Steinman; "to join men who'd shoot us down like dogs! Then
let the old man swallow his pill," and turning to the coming throng the
furious leader shouted, "Come on!"
To Jim Wallace's side came running now, trembling, weeping with
excitement and fear, a little boy of nine. With one grab the burly
freight conductor seized and fairly slung him through the doorway into
the dark interior, sprang after him, turned and barred the heavy oaken
door, then seizing again the little fellow's hand, rushed him through a
long lane of half-completed cars, through dim and gloomy aisles, and a
maze of work-benches, until they reached the north end of the shops, a
long block away.
"Now, Billy boy," he cried, straining his little brother one instant in
his arms, "be a man for daddy's sake. Run like the wind for the avenue.
Fred's regiment can't be six blocks away. Tell the Colonel they're
killing father at the shops. Away with you, laddie!"
And like an arrow from the bow the little fellow sped, even as the sound
of battering beams thundered through the resounding arches of the dark
deserted shops, and Jim went groping back to find his gray-haired
father.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Begun in HARPER'S ROUND TABLE No. 821
OAKLEIGH.
BY ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND.