CHAPTER XXXV.

Northern Advocate, 7 January 1888, Page 3

CHAPTER XXXV.

A TITLE WITHOUT A CLAIMANT. * Stop ! Stop ! all of you ! " commanded'the captain, as the company started ug f rom the table. " Please let me direct. Philip, you and the surgeon will go with me. Let the rest of you wait patiently. You shall be called by and .by." • ' 3poe three entered the state-room — one o/ the largest in the ship — Fairfax going in first, the doctor following, while Philip brought up the rear. They found the baronet — all that was earth — sitting in his large arm-chair, his head lying over upon the left side and resting a post of the ■ cot, and a small stream of dark, coagulated blood marked thq lower part of the right temple and chaek. THe face was cold, rigid and stern the- vide open, glaring, glassy eyes giving it a look horrible to gaze upon. In the right band, hand clutched so tightly that ifreguired / force to. remove it was a small, silver-mounted revolver of American manufacture, a weapon which Sir Jeffrey had purchased many years before in London, and since carried, most of the lime,-, about his person. Only one chamber of the pistol was . empty. The doctor wiped away the clotted blood sufficiently to discover where the ball had entered. It was near the centre of the temple ; and the insertion of a slender pen-stock, used as a probe, showed that the bullet had passed upward, and slightly forward, through the very centre of the brain. " He could have suffered no pain?" said Philip, interrogatively, struggling hard the while with the great horror that had fallen upon him. "Not the least," answered the surgeon "was instanteous. Those pistol-slugs are ragged things to pass through one's brain." They closed the door behind them when they entered, and as Vivian started, as though to open it, Philip stopped him. . "Doctor, give me a moment before yon go." " I was only going for my instrument case. That was all." " It can wait a few minutes ? " " Certainly." "Then let us think this matter over, v I would like to know the cause of this." '* " Dear boy, let the cause rest as it is. If you do not know, do not seek to know. . u 'Ati ! " murmured the truly unhappy mourning son, gazingwith a pitying look upOfr the dead face, "but I do know. I wish trf know the immediate incentive. The hist/time heleft me — yesterday — late in the afternoon — he asked me a startling S question, and I answered frankly and truthfully." :. "Will you tell us what lie sought to V knew from you ? " \ " Yes. He asked me, and I could see t that the thought filled his whole being — \he asked me if I knew the person calling himself Arthur really was." *' And you told hiit — " '. I told him ; yes." Philip, did you know ? " "Yes." "Who told you ? <J " A painted picture ttet hangs in the gallery at the old Priory. "Ah! — I see. And y*u have known long?" "Since my father begaa to fear and hate him and to plot against him. Until then I thought it .only a remarkable co-

incidence. And I know more. Aye, I have already told you. Iknow the crime that darkened and ruined my father's life I 0 ! God have mercy on his "Amen!" " Last evening, before he left me, he gave me his hand, and asked me if I could forgive him for all the wrong he had done me. Thank Heaven! I forgave him from my heart! He looked strangely, but I had no supicion of this And now, Doctor, when you came to my room last evening you had come from him had you not?" The surgeon answered in the affirmative, and then, after a little thought, he went on and gave a detailed and graphic account of his interveiwwith the baronet, repeating almost word for word the conversation as it had taken place. When he had done there was no longer any question with regard to the incentive that had prompted the suicidal act. To be stripped of his ill-gotten title and wealth he might have borne, but when it had been brought home to him thot the crime of murder— the murder of the cousin whose heir heir he had beleived to be — had not only been fastened uponj him, but that very step he towards the J perpetration, even to the deadly act, had been traced, and could be proved in a court of justice — when he had come to know, this, it had been as the last ounce upon the camel's back. It crushed him utterly, rendering life but a burden of mortal dread forevermore ! Finally, Philip laid his hand upon the ice-cold brow and murmured a fervent, prayer to the Father of Mercy, and then went out from the room, the others soon following. Hunger must be appeased; so, after a time, they were gathered once more around the board* Bosalind read the Psalm— the captain did not change it — and as read it sounded like a sweet, sofo strain of angelic music. There was not a dry eye there. Philip's great agony it was— though not outwardly manifested — that moved them most. We must not forget or fail to make record of Philip's appetite, and the result of his eating. He eat heartily, eat slowly and diseriminately : And he arose from tne table feeling physically better than when he had sat down. When the meal was concluded he asked the doctor if there could be any harm in his going on deck. " No," answered Vivian, with intense satisfaction in a look and tone. " From this moment you may consider yourself — discharged — cured. Go where you please only remember this one thing — it is not your person you are to be jealous of. You need not fear over-fatigue nor cold ; it is your stomach that must be cared for. Be kind to it, dear boy, and all will go well. During the day men were detailed by the excutive officer to perform the office of undertaker, aud the body of the dead was prepared for its water sepulture. It had been arranged that the solemn rite should be performed that evening at sunset. Philip so desired it. Captain. Fairfax had offered to allow the body to remain till another day, but the fatherless sou said — no. It was better that it shoud be consigned to its rest before the night had fallen. Late in the afternoon Arthur came to the bereaved youth on the quarter-deck, and asked him if the remains were dressed and prepared to suit him. He simply bowed, and followed the cleric to the cabin, were in the main apartment the body had been hud on agangplank draped with the .British flag. Cast. Fairfax, the surgeon, the gunner, Ben Burton, and Bosalind Archer stood near; but they drew back as the two youths advanced—all save the captain. He had directed the arrangements, and he remained to see how it suited. The body was. clad in Sir Jeffrey's court suit, and on the left brest of the coat was fixed the escutcheon bearing the arms of Wyngold. It was a Norman shield of fine gold, suspended on a piece of white silk ribbon, with the arms engraved on its surface. The hair, had been so arranged as to hide the wound complete"Does it suit you, Philip the captain asked when the former had fairly viewed it. The young man did not at once reply Presently, with tightly closed lips, and a stem look of the pale face, he stepped forward and deliberately removed the knightly order from the breast. " Captain Fairfax," he said, with calm and dignified solemnity '' let him not go to his long account with that terrible He on his person." " You are right, Philip — you are right* I did it thinking to spare you." "Ah! you do not know me deer Captain. There, take it; and when you find the true owner bestow it upon him.' " What in thedoeshe mean ? " whispered our hero in the surgeon's ear. Ask Uncle Ben. He can tell you. — Or — wait! You shall know all about it before the day is done. Best you quiet for the present." Arthur bowed, and said n* more ; and shortly afterwards the party returned to the deck. Shortly before the hour set forjthe funeral obsequies had arrived, Philip, and Arthur, and Uncle Ben, and Bosalind stood together near the stern. "Dear Philip!— my brother!" softly and tenderly spakb the lady, looking up with a world of sympathy inher beautiful face, ''you will not mount asmourn those who have no hope P " He looked into the upturned face — so lovely; Jso frank; and so truthful — till his eyes filled. Pretty soon he answered with wondrous depth and pathos : " No, no, Bosalind ; I shall not mourn hopelessly. I shall struggle up, trusting sincerely that my life may, in some slight degree, make up in the great sum of humanity for the lack and the fault of him who is gone ! " Both his hearers uttered a fervent Amen! — and shortly afterwards they were called to the gang-way, where the crew were assembling for the solemn service which was soon to be performed. The body was brought on deck by four seaman. • It was sewed up in a stout canvas shroud, with aj sixty-four-pound shot at the feet and over it the flag of England. A plank was laid across the sill of the bulwark-gangway — that space, or opening, in the nettings through which people pass over the side in going to or from the ship — and upon this the body was laid, with the feet outward I over the sea.

(To be continued. )