THE ROMANCE OF THE HIGH SEAS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 50, 28 February 1931, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE ROMANCE OF THE HIGH SEAS.

SYNOPSIS OF FIRST INSTALMENT The crew of the old sailer Angelas, be calmed in the South Pacific, are a .Sabbath service when a wind springs up •Soon afterwards a drifting boat is seer and in it are found a young man anc a girl, botn near death from thirst and exposure to the fierce sun. Having beei revived by the rough, kindly CAPTAIN HICKS, the girl now tells hei story. No. Xl.— (Concluded.) ' She had come out from her island home in the grey North Sea less than a. year before to join her father—a dreamy old mission worker, who had stayed so long in the Paumotus that he had almost forgotten his own She had booked to Vancouver, as being the most likely place to secure a passage in a vessel calling at the Low Archipelago. She had been fortunate enough to find one in the schooner Rapidan, whose first mate, Jack Baker, was now her fellowpatient in the captain's hands. Less by far thfl.Ti the six weeks taken by the schooner to reach her destination was needed to teach them that life henceforth would be a waste unless they saw it out together. "He's a sailor, then?" Captain Obed interrupted. "Um! That's something to the good, anyhow." "Oh, he's the sweetest boy —" "Yes, yes! 'Course. Go on." There were many liberes —parolled convicts from the French penal settlement in New Caledonia —living at liberty in the Paumotu Islands. . "Aye, the swabs," her listener cut m. 'They should poison them first, darn J'em, and parole them afterwards." Among the number was one Felix flerard. He had been a shipbroker at Gravelines, in Northern France. An unfortunate inability to detach himself from his clients' money had secured him a long term in Noumea, New Caledonia. Once freed, he had worked his way cast —always under the Tricolour; that condition was rigidly insisted on by the French authorities—until he found vent for his abilities at Motu Hilo, the Paumotuan island on which her father had settledJean's Desperate Plight. From the day of Jean's arrival Gerard had haunted the old missionary's house. Jean's father, too diffident to repulse even one of so indifferent a reputation, had endured him uncomfortably. Jean, as quiet girls will, showed her dislike unmistakably in her manner. But Felix Gerard was a hard man to defeat. With a suavity that revolted her he pressed his claim, pressed it even •when, in despair of convincing him by other means, she had told him bluntly of her engagement to the' English mate. The little one would soon forget, he laughed; and if not, M'sieur Baker would do the forgetting himself. Sailors! What would you! Then her father sickened of some obscure native disease. The doctor of a calling French gunboat frowned thoughtfully and suggested poison. The gunboat ay as off again before he could make up his mind. Felix Gerard behaved very decorously at the hurried funeral. . Deprived even of the weak shield of her father's protection, life on Motu Hilo became a torture. Gerard's hungry pursuit would not permit him the decency of waiting, at least, until time had softened her grief. Denial made him more insistent. The little one, she ■would relent. And the English sailor? Bah?

News, travelled very slowly from the Paumotus. The society under whose direction Alan Peterson had laboured knew nothing of his death for many months. Jean waited for her passage home to be-arranged —or fox some news of Jack Baker. For that, above all, and desperately, she prayed. Odd vessels, French mostly, called; but no Rapidan. Felix was becoming more brutal than ever in-his wooing. The little money Peterson had left soon went. Before she would accept the credit offered by the libere she subsisted on native food. Her clothes soon became shabby, patch them how she might. Arrival of the Rapidan. She had made up her mind to swim off to the first vessel that visited the har-, hour and appeal to her captain for a passage anywhere, when the beloved outline of the white-winged Rapidan making her way through the dangerous channel at dawn brought the light back to her eyes. 'For a week she was. gloriously happy. But somehow she could not bring herself to tell her sailor lover of the persecution she had received at Gerard's hands. "You wouldn't understand, captain," she murmured, in wistful apology. "Only a woman would." "Um! Dunno. Go on. Darn that swab!" It had been arranged that she should sail in the Rapidan. Had her father been alive he could have married them there. But Rarati, in the Cook Islands, was the mext call, and only a week away. M'sieur Felix owned a sixty feet motor launch. He was storekeeper of the little port, pilot, and bootlegger-in-chief to the natives for 50 miles round. He decided that it would be advisable to solicit the friendship of Jack Baker. On several occasions he managed to work up arguments about the intricate channels between the reefs that abounded thereabouts, and g£,ined for the group the alternative name of the Dangerous Archipelago.

He pooh-poohed the soundings marked on the Rapidan's charts, and insisted on Tunning Baker out in his own Nanette to settle the wager he had forced on the mate. Baker, banking on the superior knowledge of the naval liydrographers who had issued the chart, gaily rose to the bait.

"You Weel Have Mooch Time!" At knock-off time one evening the INanette sheered alongside the Rapidan's gangway. Baker, ready dressed, jumped aboard. Three minutes later Jean stepped in from the jetty. A course was set through the reef channel. Then Cerard took the wheel and swung her licad to the southward. ° Jean, and no less Jack Baker, cared Tittle how he headed. Their company was all they desired. Seated on the skylight, side by side, they watched the 3iills of Motu Hilo recede in the distance. Then the treacherous libere acted. A loopline, cast by a gigantic Paumotuan, who had crept barefoot along the other side( of the deck, whizzed over Baker's head and bit into his neck. .Jean screamed and leaped to her feet. "The libere stopped his engine and caught lier as ho came. Coil after coil encircled Baker's body as the giant and those who had come to his assistance trussed him up. t

THE ANGELUS GOES OFF HER COURSE (By FRANK BISSON.).

"What game's this, you treacherous dog?" Baker demanded.

Gerard thrust Jean below and locked lier there before answering.

"Dog, I theenk you say, M'sieur? You weel have mooch time to reflect on the unwisdom of calling Felix Gerard dog soon, m'sieur! Mooch time. More, perhaps, than you weel enjoy." Some order lie barked in their language sent- his crew to the teak punt. They lifted it bodily from its small skid to the deck. The water beaker-— plug out —was turned upside down and left to drain. Some inkling of the exconvict's intentions was beginning to be apparent to the bound man. But struggling was utterly useless. The lashings were proof against any strength he could bring to bear. The Woman's Choice. From where they had pitched him he could see the Southern Cross in the heavens overhead. They were heading due south. Hour after hour passed, the engine pulsing steadily. Jack Baker judged ! by the rush past of the water that the Nanette was doing at least twelve knots an hour. The tension of his lashings was beginning to cause him almost intolerable agony. His anxiety for his soft-vpiced love tortured.

It might have been midnight when the libere stopped his engine. The Paumotuans lifted the punt overboard, and let her tow alongside. Without more ceremony than if he were a bale of goods Baker was dropped into her. Then Jean was brought up and offered the choice of returning to Motu Hilo to his home—there was no mention of marriage now —or remaining with her sailor sweetheart to die a dog's death. Her presence in the boat was her answer. . . Another week's calm followed to plague Captain Obed. He bore it with unusual equanimity. When the wind did come he laid his course due north, although south-east was his legitimate direction. By dawn of Sunday he had raised Motu "Hilo, with his pilot Jack flying at thei masthead. Three miles to windward of the reef he threw his main yards aback and waited. Felix Gerard's Nanette ran towards them in a smother of foam. As the crew caught the rope that was thrown, she ground back on the gangway. Tripping lightly up, Gerard dropped on the Angelus' deck. Still hands gripped him. An axe severed the rope that held his Nanette. "Square away the main yard!" Captain Obed thundered. The Punt's Painter is Cut Again. The sails, filled. The Angelus speedily gathered weigh. Gerard's giant black coxswain headed to follow. As he creaked alongside a. vast holystone crashed down. He accepted the warning and fled. Strong arms twisted Felix's in their sockets wh.en he would have held back. Into the saloon he went. Down either side of. the table well-thumbed prayer books were laid. The crew, trooping past him, dropped respectfully into their allotted places. Captain Hicks, at the head of the table, opened the Book. The steward tapped at the master's door. Jean Peterson emerged, her eyes lowered. Her lover came from the starboard stateroom and stood beside her.

Be sure that no bishop ever united a reigning prince to his chosen one with greater, pride in his accents than rang in the rolling tones of Captain Obed Hicks. He had buried many men at sea. He had baptised children—two_ of his own. But never had he exercised his prerogative as a British shipmaster to perform the marriage ceremony. The heart of the Shetland maid and her stalwart .sailor glowed as they listened —but not more than his as he read.

They were dreaming sweet dreams when, four . hours later, Captain Obeci dropped Monsieur into the little teak punt and cut the; painter.