THE Story of Hilary Legh.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11, 11 August 1911, Page 7

THE Story of Hilary Legh.

BY HABOLD BINMLOSS, Author of •On Nicer Land," Ju-Ju," "A Brave Man's Love," etc., etc. CHAPTERVI. Ttw Salving of the Sunset City. One minute after the whaleboat had left her side the cruiser had vanished utterly into thick white vapor, and all jign of light and life vanished with her; for, save' for the boom of breakers, the coldness and silence of death brooded over the sea. Legh's fingers commenced to stiffen on the tiller, and he was glad of the sound when, ten minutes later, the crew, resting on their oars, shouted togethor. But no answer came out of the clammy mist, and when they had rowed further and shouted again, this time savagely, the men, oppressed by a growing dismay, sat still trying to see each other's faces. The boat rose and fell leisurely on the long swell, for the breeze had fallen; but by the wrinkling of the sea Legh could tell a strong current was carrying them along, though in what direction he did not know. It was, however, clearly impossible to make a safe landing on the hammered reefs in thick obscurity, and when the cold commenced to creep into their bones Gibson, the mate, roused himself and took the tiller, saying: "We've got to get a move on to fceep from freezing. Stretch out, can't you!" Then the oars splashed once more, and for an hour or two the boat described circles round the spot shs started from; or at least Gibson hoped so, though the roar of the reefs grew fainter meanwhile. Neither when they headed (as they fancied) directly back for it did the sound increase, and it Lad almost sunk into ghostly silence when Legh curled himself up on the floorings beside Morsley, who, when somebody said "This blame sea is full of currents, and no chart shows where, they go," answered drowsily, "Well, now we're here we're nowhere else, and the Lord knows where we might be." It was daylight when Legh awaVened, and though a bitter air was blowing, thick vapor still clogged the sou, irhiie the rime clung in glistening beads about his comrades' furs as they rowed dejectedly, until the oreeze freshened and one of them stepped the lugsail mast.

There's food for several days in the kicker, besides water; ought to be a compass, but I can't find it," said Gibson. "My watch is going, and we can get our bearings from the sun. A paltry breeze generally comes from the south, and as we must have drifted north from the island we'll close-haul her to it." All day the boat slid onwards, making, perhaps, three knots per hour over a long, wrinkled heave, but her anxious crew could caVjh no pale blinK of sunlight or sound of breakers; while as the lingering darkness fell they reefed the lugsail to a freshening breeze. Legh managed to sleep in spite of the cold when his turn at the tiller was done, and, awaking stiff all over, found the boat running before a high, confused sea, with drizzle obscuring the tumbling waters behind her, and a narrow stretch of tossing crests ahead. Where they were running to nobody knew, but it was necessary to keep the tiny craft before the sea, and he found comfort in noticing how cleverly she lifted to each oncoming hill, which split beneath her quarters md foamed forward on either side high above her waist. Gibson, the mate, was leaning forward with both hands on the tiller, a wooden-faced Siwash grasped the lugsail sheet, and when Morsley, munching a handful of sodden biscuit, commenced "Now we're here, we're " the former broke in: "I wish we weren't, and if my hands fiive out it's tolerably certain we won't be here long. The first comber that catches her twisting will swallow her, and it's a question of upbringing where you'll be then." It was the same throughout most of a trying day, and the only change occurred when a taciturn sealer relieved Gibson at the helm. Legh had once sailed a yacht of his own; Morsley in the course of'a varied experience had learned to use the tiller, and they had acquired further seamanship on board the Magnolia; but it needs a long training and some natural genius to keep an open boat running before a steep, breaking sea. If she swerves at an angle in her course when hove half clear of water on the spouting crest, one of two things must happen. Either the 'ail will jibe over, burying the gunwale deep, or the rush of foam will strike W upon the weather-beam, and the result in either case is generally disastrous.

The dimness was thickening when one «f the four white men called aloud, and glancing astern Legh saw a trail of smoke rise out of the sea. Later, slanted spars appeared above it, and there *as a space of trying suspense until Gibson said sullenly, "It's not the Otter, and the only other steamer in the fleet is hanging round the Pribyloffs. Must be that blamed cruiser the Russian commander ga/e us a hint about." Events shortly proved him right, for an old-fashioned gunboat came rolling astern, and after a red flash from her side a fountain of water leapt up ahead, hereupon Gibson said: "That's plain enough. If there was any chance we might try to get away, but it's mighty certain I can't keep her running before tois sea in the dark. Stand by, Jim, a J"I make them understand that if B ne'll steam ahead we'll try to come alongside under her lee." It was done. The gunboat swept past "'em, then stopped her engines and lay fallowing right across the sea, while had a brief vision of deck and guns, men in uniform, and stumpy funH all slanted down towards them as the- whaleboat shot past her stern. The '"gsail came down with a run, there *«s an unintelligible shouting, a crash °» yielding pinewood against iron Plates, and he was climbing aloft at the ®& of a swinging line 4 to be grasped by '** % mam wta k« trim ft*

cruiaw'* deck. The rest of his comrades followed, the wreck 'of the overturned whaleboat drifted, away astern, and an officer said in passable English:

"Part of the crew of the schooner Otter? We have been looking for you, and you will be landed at our first port of call to await instructions from Vladivostoek. Meantime you will be given quarters in the hold." With one hour's fresh air daily, when they helped to scrub the deck, they lived in the dark and musty hold, faring very plainly, until all were glad when at last the engines stopped and they were taken ashore at a reef-girt inlet' which from the description of comrades who had been there before Gibson recognised. He also recognised something else when they passed a schooner moored beside the reef. The paint had long peeled from her sides, shreds of rotten gear hung about her spars, the bulwark planks were gaping, and there was a desolate look about her of ruin and decay, for a vessel—like a house—goes rapidly to pieces without human occupation. "Great seals! that's the Sunset City," he said. "The Russians seized her illegally, well outside their limits over eight years ago, or at least her skipper swore they did. Part of her crew lit out in a dory and were never heard of; the rest spent months in Siberia until there was a protest from Ottawa, and they sent them home, halfstarved skeletons. Oh, I guess there was a howl in the papersj but the Russians froze on to the schooner. Makes one think of turning an American almost when the bloated Government lies back cooling itself with ice-water and allows her subjects to be robbed." "You might do worse," said Morsley, with a grin. "Our Government's ain't a bad one if it would only thin out those blamed sheriffs. Still, I have seen your folk get up and kick when somebody kept on prodding them long enough. Now there was a U.S. cruiser which started in to mop up the British sealing fleet "

The butt of a Muscovite rifle thrust into his ribs cut the speaker short, and soon the party were marched ashore towards a desolate wobden settlement with an earth fort at one end girt about by wind-dwarfed firs. The lonely Pacific hemmed it on the one hand, barren wastes and trackless forests stretched for countless leagues towards the south-west, and to the north untrodden tundra mosses reached back towards the ice-fields of the Pole. This the officer who locked them in a loghouse prison explained at length, and when Gibson had answered left them saying: "Your case will be inquired into at Vladivostock and probably referred to higher authorities, while your salvage claim will certainly be dismissed. Some time may elapse before the proper Minister has leisure to trouble about you, but you understand that starvation would certainly follow any attempt to escape. Besides which the sentries would shoot you." Five weary months they dwelt in the log-house; four dejected white men, two stolid Siwash and one Japanese, until the latter died and was buried somehow by the At intervals they were sent out to hew wood under a guard, but they passed most of the heavy hours playing spiritless games with draughts or cards manufactured ingeniously out of bark. Their food was insufficient—bread or bark and rye, and partly-decomposed dried fish—and Gibson grew weak and moody upon it, while Legh would spend days together in sullen silence, hatching and abandoning impracticable schemes of escape. Morsley, too, found no comfort in his usual formula, for he admitted that any place would be better than their present abode. Winter was already closing in when the three, who had been sent to gather the thirty-foot kelp which grows in those waters, sa£ one sunset upon a rock-shelf looking down on the schooner, and Legh, who had been unusually silent of late, said: "Gibson, you can't live out the winter here, and I shall go mad, I think. They have forgotten us altogether, and that's perhaps even better than being sent inland. In any case, I'm going to make' a break for liberty, and if nothing else comes of it, at least starve free. If we seized her, could you take that old schooner home across the Pacific?" .

"Sails mildewed and rotten; gear worse; a several-thousand-mile journey, and winter coming," answered the mate, laconically. "If we had food and westerly gales there's one chance in a thousand it might be done, but the first bad plunge into a head sea would shake the masts out of her. Besides, there's not much nourishment in air." "There are fishing tribes down the coast," broke in Legh. "We might get food from them. Anyway, quick starvation can't be worse than the slow process, and I'm ready to chance it." They growled together in sullen whispers until the boom of the evening gun rolled across the inlet and a Russian soldier appeared on a ridge above beckoning them, when, shouldering their burdens, they marched back to the log-house. A further consultation was held there, after which Morsley and one brawny Indian stationed them-1 selves behind the door while the rest sat for a time about the rude table in dead silence, listening to the beating of their own hearts and the calling of the sea. It seemed to Legh's excited fanev it was calling him back to the restraints and privileges he had abandoned from a state of partial savagery, and he longed for life and warmth and brightness after that dark region of ice and mist, wet reefs, and hungry, smoking seas, until it came as a relief to him when Morsley, perhaps to break the suspense, said: "What are you thinking of, partner—the old country?" "I was," he remarked softly. "I was thinking I could go back there and live smoothly if I owned myself wrong and came home, to put it so, crawling on my hands and knees." "And that would come hard?" said Morsley; and Legh struck the table with his thin hand as he answered: "So hard that I could never do it for myself alone, while the only woman I might try it for, if she knew I was living would hate me, No, I'll go back a prosperous man and demand my rights, not pity, or never go back at

all, and that's the most probable. 'A considerable mess I've made of everything." Gibson, who leaned feebly against the logs, raised a warning finger, and Morsley laughed softly when footsteps approached the door, while for the next few moments no one breathed as the key grated sharply. A Russian soldier carrying a basket of coarse food entered the room, turned at a sound behind him, and dropped the basket—too late, for Morsley's fingers were round his throat, while Legh drove a bundle of wet keln into his face. The three men went "down together, with the Siwash on top of them; there was a brief struggle on the floor, but no shoutiug, for Morsley kept hold, and when it ended the Russian was tied up neatly with their faggot lines and a pad of sealskin crammed into his mouth. Then, locking the door behind them, six shadowy figures flitted towards the beach at the head ef the inlet under the watery moon, and had almost gained it when a dog barked and a man hailed them from a cabin. "Confound the brute!" said Legh. "We'll have the soldiers down on us before we can launch this heavy boat. There's an old- dory astern of the schooner, and she's lying close in to the reef. Somebody must swim off for it. No!—you're too late to stop him." The jnun was running his hardest towards the tiny fort, but the dog 'o ■ 'lowed them, snarling savagely, until Legh managed to drop a good-sized boulder upon it as they floundered over slimy weeds along the reef, while the crack of a rifle aroused the settlement. It was ebb-tide, and a strong stream set out past the ragged ledges; the old schooner lay straining at her cable scarcely thirty yards away; and flinging off his jacket Legh, followed by a Siwash, leapt into the hurrying water. He gasped as he rose to the surface, for it was deadly cold and thick with snow-cake; but the schooner seemed surging towards him, and swimming desperately with left hand swung forward over his head he clutched at her slippery sides and felt the sluice of tide drag his numbed fingers clear of the slimy weeds. Then he drove past her counter, and with a salmon-like spring the Indian grabbed the dory's painter and stretched out a hand to him. They fell in over the gunwale, burst the rotten rope, flung the oars over and pulled furiously; while hardly had the little craft grounded against the reef than there was a tramp of hurrying feet very close above. They were alongside the schooner in a minute or two, someone slipped the pawl from the windlass and let the cable roar out through the hawse-pipe, while Morsley cast off the quarter mooring wire. Meantime in mad hurry a Siwash ran up the forestay sail, and amid a whine of corroded blocks the ragged folds of the boom fore-sail fluttered aloft, every man hauling at something for his very life. Gibson jammed the helm a-weather; with a tinkle beneath them the schooner's bows swung round, for the land breeze was setting out of the inlet, and there was a hoarse cheer as gathering way she lifted to the 'ap of the swell and sidled out to sea. The pounding of feet on rock and shingle grew louder behind, the grinding of a boat's keel followed it, and twice a rifle bullet shrilled overhead; but Gibson, who smote one chilled hand on the wheel exultantly, said: "Get the mainsail on her and rustle the jibs and topmast staysail out. More wind outside there, and once clear of the heads they've seen the last of us." There was a huge rent in the rotten canvas beneath it when the main gaff was peaked, but part of the sail held. Hauling and shouting, Legh and the Siwash were rattling the jibs up their wire stays, and being empty the Sunset City listed over until one side rose like a wall as, hurling white spray aloft, she lurched out past the reef's tail into the Pacific, while the thud of oars grew fainter and fainter astern. "Euchred!" cried Morsley, leaping up on the v taff rail and shaking his fist towards the now invisible boat. "I guess it's a temptation to close-haul her and run over the brutes. What's your course, skipper? Straight away southeast for Victoria, isn't it?" "Not yet!" said Gibson drily. "We have got to find provisions and rub some of the weeds off her first. I can't live on nothing for several months, sick as I am, while the more I look at her the more scared I get. It passes me how these masts stand up at all." (To be continued.)