THE TURMOIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15730, 3 October 1914, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE TURMOIL.

———-Or: BY PAUL- URQUHART. COPYRIGHT. CHAPTER I.

A dirty wad of cotton waste pressed close between my teeth prevented me from giving expression to my feelings. To judge from the exceedingly unpleasant taste, I should say that before doing duty as a gag this material had been used for some months to mop up oil in a machine-room. I have.no palate for oils, however I could not guarantee to distinguish whether the oleaginous fluid that exuded from the waste and trickled down my throat was vegetable or mineral. I know it was infernally disagreeable.

Fortunately, I had retained my eyeglass throughout the ridiculously brief struggle with the five masked brigands. It enabled me to preserve some shred of self-respect. The very concentration of the muscles necessary to keep it in my eye helped mo to retain that look of dignified calm which becomes a gentleman who is about to shake hands with death.

I. am not certain whether Death is symbolised by an old gentleman with a scythe and one of thoso implements for gauging to a nicety the boiling of an egg, or by a skeleton with an unpleasant grin. But whichever is technically correct, it seemed we were undoubtedly going to bo better acquainted before long. One of the five brigands was for placing us on intimate terms there and then, but the leader, who looked least like an undesirable alien, was too interested in extricating some barrels from underneath the hearthstone of the hut to fix definitely the timo for my departure from the world of the quick.

"Take the girl," he said in excellent French, " and let's get these barrels on board. We can settle with monsieur afterwards." As 1 lay there, trussed up liko a cornsack, squinting to the best of my ability/ to catch sight of all that was going on, I could not bring my mind to regard the affair seriously. The whole incident appeared to be altogether too romantic and unprosaic for the twentieth century. Even the cords that bit most abominably into my wrists failed to convince me that there was anything real about the situation. I lay there like a man who is waiting, in a state of semi-consciousness, to wake up from a nightmare;' ''■"•

Here was I, Hugh Purcell, fourteenth and youngest son of Lord Loughmore—for generations the members of the families of successive Purcells have always been in inverse proportion' to their incomesone of the officials in the Boot Department of the War Office, about to bo done to death in a very dirty, ramshackle hut in a lonely spot on the Essex coastline by a party of French brigands, who had come there, the Lord knows how, and the Lord knows why. .

It was a climax to a not unamusing day, which I could not bring myself,to regard as having any part with actuality.

I had motored down from London that morning to assist in inaugurating one of the County Associations under the very newest of the Army Bills. I had made myself pleasant to mayors and volunteer colonels, impressing them with the fact that in the hour of trial England would have to look to them for support in the face of a foreign invader, and England, I added, I was sure would not look in vain. The beauty of dealing with the whole race en masse as a sort of separate entity

is■ that\ you can ascribe to it—or is it her''— sentiment you please. I don't really suppose that England will ever look to the mayors and volunteer colonels I had to ingratiate that day in the hour of her ■ trial. Matters will have got to a pretty crisis if she does.

1 believe I did what was required of me to the satisfaction of everybody. Seves ral fat and pompous aldermen introduced me to their wives as the 'Onourable 'Ugh Purccll, and seemed to regard mo as somebody even more important than the majorgeneral of the county.

The function was a complete success. Wo worked up a tremendous lot of enthusiasm on a lot of copybook patriotic sentiments and champagne, and a certain distinguished statesman was good enough to congratulate .me on the part I played in the, affair.', I was .-glad, when it was all over and I was able to get into my car and start for London.

I took the road by the sea, intending after a thirty-mile run to turn inland and so make London; but, owing to a heavy sea fret that camo up from the German Ocean and the darkness, for it was close upon midnight, I missed my way. The road was so narrow that I didn't care to turn back, but felt my way onward at about twelve miles an hour. Every moment the fog seemed to grow denser, end I waa expecting every second to run myself into the sea, which moaned drearily on my left, when tho worst happened; my car, suddenly and unexpectedly, broke down.

I got out and stood in tho road in tho fog, and said some very sharp things about the maker of my car, and George Lake, my chauffeur, valet, and handyman, and, incidentally, my friend, who saved my life in South Africa. Had Lake been therj he would have said something brief and to the point in broad Yorkshire, and then proceeded to make magic with a

spanner, and in two minutes ,%£ -fti would have .been all right; butfpf'had left Lako at homo purposely ;so that he might hear the band from.his old village in. the West Riding win (fa National Band Contest at the Crystal' Palace. None the ; :less, I cursed hijft 'for hot being there., I /.flew''at wouldn't mind, and it «?tti"my feelings good.

Tailing one of the lamps, I proceeded to make an examination of tho engine, and not finding anything wrong on top I laid myself on my back in the road and began trying to put things right at the bottom of the car. It was while I was in this horribly uncomfortable position that I heard above the moaning of the sea a voice coining down the road, crying louder every moment: "Help, help!" and the quick patter of feet.

I extricated myself. .us speedily as pos-' sible, and seizing the lamp peered up tho road The voice and the patter of feet came nearer and nearer, and 1 heard the sound of somebody breathing hard, and then, where the broad beam of light from my acetylene lamp pierced the fog, I saw running towards me the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life! 1 forget what she was dressed in, but I could tell you every detail of her ;iead and face, from tho glorious mass of black hair, all bedewed with fog-diamonds, the dark, lustrous eyes, the small shell-like ears; to tho little refined nose, the red tremulous lips, and the delicately-moulded chin. She was divinely beautiful, and rceing her then as' I saw her, her cheeks all rosy red with running, she looked like the spirit of some land where the sun always shines who had blundered through misfortune into tlrj territory ui King Fog. ~io jjl.iri' ui "ns i:;Ju I'MKjiht li.-r to u sudden standstill. lih.j r.i.iu ,i.: hand* to her eyes, dazzled and blinking. I put tho lamp promptly oii the ground, directing its beams seawards.

'•"What is-the matter?" I said, stepping forward. Sho stretches out -her hands imploringly, and as I looked into her face, tense with emotion, my heart, to use the language of the East, melted within me. "Oh, come, sir, they are murdering grandpapa! Pleas© come." Her voice was soft and musical, and when' sho put out he: little hand and clutched me by the arm, I felt I would have followed her unquestionably into the jaws of hell, so completely had the spell of her beauty enchanted me. "Who are you?" I said, turning away my face, and 'seizing the heaviest spanner from my box of tools.

"I'm Joan, sir," she. said simply, "and grandpapa's ' Old Dummy.' And live men are trying to kill him. Oh, please come quickly!"

I did not consider her brief outline of the persons of the tragedy, if tragedy it was, particularly lucid. But there was clearly not time" for longer explanations. Seeing me armed she turned without more ado and began running back again up the road. I followed by her side. A little wind had sprung up. The fog began to lift from off the • land, and through the thin, gauze-like vapour that remained, ,1 young wraith of a moon and a few friendly stars looked down. We must have run for about a quarter of a mile before she stopped. She put her fingers to her lips.

"Sah!" she said. " They are there."

About a hundred yards away, a, little way off the road, standing among the dreary waste of sand dunes and serde, I saw .a miserable-looking hovel, built partly of stone and partly of wood, and hacked together, so it seemed, with the flotsam and jetsam of the shore._ Through a dull, wretched window a little light twinkled.

"How many are there?" I whispered. " Five," she answered. I readjusted my eyeglass, which had dropped during our run, and otherwise tried to pull myself together for what lay before me, Clearly, I was in for something very unpleasant, and wished more than ever that George Lake was with me. (He is certainly the handiest man' in a scran I have ever met). But I didn't stop* to consider how the girl could expect me to cope with five men, for I havo always found that considerations of that sort are apt to hamper one's powers of action.

"We had better get on!" I said, a luming a business-like tone of voice.

Our feet making no sound on the sand, we crept slowly towards the hut. As we drew near we'could hear a sound as of pickaxes tearing at hardened clay. I stepped up to the window and peered through.

Five villainous-looking men in blue shirts and. ill-fitting dark trousers were collected round the large hearth that stood one sido of the miserably furnished room. Two of them were wielding pickaxes, two others stood aside with shovels waiting their turn. The fifth man, to judge from the way he directed the work, seemed to be in command. My eyes shifted from this little group to a figure lying on the ground behind the men. ' I am not easily upset, but what I saw there shook me not a little. The figure was that'of a very old man, past ninety, I should say, all withered and emaciated. He lay on his bark with his eyes open, his arms stretched out stiff by his side, the fingers turned as if clutching at the floor. On the top of his absolutely hairless head, blood trickled slowly from a ghastly wound, or had been trickling, 1 should say, for the man was clearly dead. It was not so much the blood that had flowed over his withered cheeks and run in crimson rivulets over his eyes and ears that appalled me: in South Africa I had seen many such sights, but it was his mouth that shook me. «'

It was wide open, the lower jaw had sunk upon his chest. In the dim light I could see that the man had only the stump of a tongue, the rest had been torn off by the roots. It was unspeakably horrible.

I felt a.movement by my side, and.l turned quickly with the.thought of shutting out-the appalling , sight from the girl. But she had seen the dead figure before :T could stop her. She gave, a

little scream, and throwing all caution to the. winds, rushed into the hut, and throwing herself down by the side of the.'dead body, began kissing the face of the corpse, and crying out wildly, "Grandpapa, grandpapa!"

Instinctively I followed her. As I entered the room the five men turned. I stopped in the doorway.. " What does this mean ?" I asked in ray most commanding voice. I hoped by assuming an authoritative tone, to perhaps awe the men. into at least running away. It was & mad idea. They had their answer ready, and a very plain and decided answer it was. : .-•■ - ; *

Three of them rushed -straight at me without a word, one with a pick, the other two with shovels clubbed ready to brain me. I stepped back out of the doorway into the open air to . meet the onset of the first. His pick just missed my foot, and as lie stumbled I caught him a welt with the spanner, - which stretched him out senseless. Before I could use my weapon again, the second man, dropping his shovel, closed with me, slinging his arms around my waist-. He nothing, not even the rudiments of wrestling, and iii a second I had him down on the floor.

Two of them were accounted for. and I was beginning to pluck .up hope that I might be able, after all, to. deal with the whole five, when I made a foolish mistake, I had forgotten the man whom I had l Mi > . o-.t with the spanner. As I threw his companion, he recovered himself sufficiently to put out a hand and seize me by the ankle. I stumbled over his' leg and just managed to catch hold of the sides of the doorway to prevent myself from falling full length.

While I was in this absurd position tho third man flung himself on me, and the man I had taken for the leader of the gang helped him; between the four of them I was soon lying in the uncomfortable position I have s already described, partaking of all sorts of oilyyfluidi'.

The girl who called herself Joan, I saw to.my dismay aj\rl alarm, hud been treated

in identically the same way

■;. It' was only after they had unearthed two" barrels?• from below the hearth that they fell to discussing my fate. Then the leader gave orders for the girl and the barrels to be taken on board, and announced that my departure from the world was to be delayed until the task had been accomplished. I felt strangely annoyed, instead of being glad at this reprieve.' Tho leader himself seized Joan, and lifting her, in spite of her struggles, carried her through the door. Tho four remaining men rolled the barrels out, meeting me as they passed, and telling me pleasantly that they wouldn't be long before they returned. In another moment I was left alone on the floor of the hut with only that ghastly corpse as a companion.

I tried my best to wriggle out of my bonds before the men should return, but my exertions only tended to tighten the cords which bound my wrists and arms, and so painful did the tension at last become that I desisted, and lay still.

A quarter of an hour must have elapsed before I heard, by the dulled plunging sound of their footsteps in the sand, the men returning. I tried to prepare myself for death according to the generally accepted plan. That is to say, I started making a sort of credit and debit account of my good and bad deeds. Had I continued this task I should have found, as we always find, I suppose, that my liabilities,' or evil deeds, far exceeded my assets, or good deeds. I should have tluT made my petition to the vipreme Master in Moral Bankruptcy, anc o awaiting the meeting of my creditors »n the last great Settling Day, have macs ready for the business of dying.

I have yet to make this decent ending that I have pictured, for even as I heard the men come within a fsw yards of the house, one of them gave, a little cry and the sound of their footsteps ceased.

"Look, look'." a voice exclaimed in French. "There arc two lights. They •ire coir in!! from th • village. We most

: I'm i mi. i Cl',.:■';,■ they turned i.uuitinently, and rncfil hr the shore, f..r I heard then I footsteps dying away in the distance. , The lights of my motor-tar had saved me I (To be continued on .Wednesday next,)