TALES & SKETCHES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 859, 17 August 1888, Page 8

TALES & SKETCHES.

j-jjOW FIRST PUBLISHED.-]

THEDEATH SHIP.

A STRANGE STORY.

AK ACCOUNT OF A CRUISE IN THIS FLYING DUTCHMAN COLLECTED FROM THE IMPERS OP THE LATE MR GEOFFREY FENTON, OF POPLAR, MASTER MARINER.

By W. Clark Russell,

Anfchor of ‘ The Wreck of the Grosvenor, 4 The Golden Hope,' &c. &c.

[All Right 3 Reserved.]

CHAPTER XXII.

Imogens and I are much together. The Storm blew with steady fury for me davs driving the tall fabric to leeward to a distance of many leagues every twenty-four hours, the course of the drift being as I should snppose-for it was im possible to put much faith in the oompasses—about east by east, the larboard tacks aboard and the ship ratohing ’ nothing. 1*"““ tinuous and heavy, this ga.e, that it be an to breed a feeling of despair m me, for I felt that if such weather lasted many w OO 0 it would end in setting us so far south that welhould be greatly out of the road taken by “ hips rounling the Cape, and from the land, that should Vanderdeeken desire to careen or water his vessel it would ocoupy months to fetch the coast, so that the prospect of escaping with Miss Imogene grew never in the least degree discomposed. She was so used to the that its movements were to her what the Steadiness of dry land is to other women.

She seldom came on deck, however. Indeed, the gusts and guns were often so herce--coming along like thunderbolts through the gale itself—that any one of them catching her gown might have carried her light figure overboard. Moreovor, twenty-four hours after the gale set in, it drew up thick as mud: the horizon was brought within reach of a musket-shot 5 and out of this thickness blew the rain, in straight lines mixed with the showering off the heads of the 3eas ; t sky hung steady, .of the color of slate no part lighter or darker than another, but so ( low that it appeared as if a man could whip his hand into it from our masthead whenever those reeling spars came plumb. As it gave me no pleasure to linger on deck in such weather, you may supp tha fc Miss Imogene and I were much together below. Often a whole morning or afternoon would pass without » soul entering the cabin where we sat. Whether A auderdeoken was pleased that Imogene had a companion —a fellow-countryman, with whom she could converse, and bo kill the time wh oh he would suspect from her recent fit 01 w eeping hung heavy on her spirits ; or that, having himself long passed those marks which time sets up as the boundaries of human passions, he was as incapable of suspecting that Imogene and I should fall in love, as he clearly was of perceiving ihe passage of , years • ’tis certain he never exhibited the smallest displeasure when, perchance, he found us together, albeit once or twice on entering the cabin when we were there he would ask Imogene abruptly, but never with the sternness his manner gathered when he addressed others, what our talk was about, aa if he suspected I was inquiring about his ship and cargo ; though if, indeed, this was so I don’t doubt the suspicion was put into his head by Van Vogelaar, who, I am sure, hated me because I was an Englishman as because our panic-striken men had fired upon It takes a man but very little time to. fall in love, though the relation of the thing, if the time be very short, is often questioned as a possibility, sometimes heartily laughed at as an absurdity, when deliberately set clown in writing. Why this should be I do not know. I could point to a good many men married to women with whom they fell in love With at a dance, or by seeing them in the street, or by catching sight of them in church and the like. I have known a man to become passionately enamoured of a girl by beholding her picture. And what savs Marlowe? — „ . ~,, ‘ Whoever loved that loved not at first sight? Depend upon it, when passion 1a of slow orowth and cultivated painfully you may suspect a deficiency somewhere. Either the girl is not delightful of face and shape, and her virtues and good qualities are hard po come at, or she is a tease or a coquette, and in a manner of speaking puts her foot down upon aman’a heart and pro vents the emotion there from shooting. There will be something wanting, something wrong, 1 say. Association may indeed lengthily induct one into a habit of affection , but the sort of love I have in my mind springs like a young god into a man’s intelligence from a maiden’s eyes. . . But whether this swift passion is more lasting than the affection that is formed by slower mental processes, and which of them is the safer to trust to, is no riddle for such as I to bother over. And in sober verity I am sorry to have been led into these remarks, which certainly should he omitted if they were not necessary gs an apology. For the truth must be told, and it is this. That the very first morning I met Imogene I fell in love with her beauty, while the long days of the storm which threw us greatly together confirmed the first movement of my heart bv acquainting me with the extraordinary sweetness, innuqence, gentleness, and purity "of he ? nature. These qualities, iihlike the enchanting hue and brightness of ber eyes* the golcfQn falls of her hair, uud her mahy other fairy graces, were not quickly' discoverable, but they stole out during our many conversations,—who that has been to sea knows nob how speedily -haraoter is discovered on shipboard .—and I "say that before that gale was ended; 1 was so much' in lovh with this fair and tender girl that I could havo laid down my life to serve her. , , -' i In thi3 time our conversation was about all" sorts of things-her parents, her home, her childhood,' the loss of her father s ship, the friendless condition she woqld be in on her arrival in England shogld I mapage to deliver hpr fr?m Vanderdeeken. IhoagJj when she came to that. X pegged her to dismiss hep fears at once %nd for ever, by assuring he? that my pother would gladly receive her and cherish her as her own daughter, havipg but me to lovo, who was always absent. At which a faint blush sweetened her pheeks, ps though she sqspacted, what was in my mifid ; bpt I was care_ ful to hurry q.w!iy from the subject, since I .did not wish her then to suppose that I 10-ed her, for fear that, not- having had time, as l believed, to love me, she might fall into a posture of mind calculated to baffle my hopes of carrying her away from the Braave. I told her all about myself, of the famous Fenton from whom I was descended, of my voyages, of the Saracen, whose passage to India I feared would have an ill issue now that she had met the Dutchman, and I talkod again of Captain Shevington’s amazing and as I supposed, accurate theories touching the living-dead who navigated this hadmuoh to tell me of Vanderdeeken and his ship ; of unsuspecting vessels they had fallen in with, which had sold them tobacco, butter, cheese and the like ; of others that had backed their topsails to speak, then taken fright and sailed away in hot haste. , , . I asked her if it was true that tho captain hailed passing ships for the purpose of sending letters home. She answered no ; it was not true ; that was the general belief, nB she had heard from her father; but, as Vanderdeckendid not know that he was curst—as he went on year after year, firmly believing that next time he should be successful in rounding the Cape -why should he desire to send letters home, more particularly as he regarded the Braave as one of the swiftest vessels afloat. She added, ‘I have never seen him write a letter, and I am certain he has never endeavoured to send one.’ < But if he finds a ship willing to speak, he will send a boat ?’ , Yes, always j but merely for necessaries

of which he is constantly in want. Now it is tobacco : another time it will be_ spirits. Some few weeks since wo met a ship, from which ho purchased several cases of marmalade and some hams, for which Van Vogelaar paid in coin that scared them, when they piit the age of tho money and the appearance of this ship together 5 for they threw the mate over board, and instantly made off. ‘I suppose Van Vogelaar could not be drowned ?’ said I. • No,’ said she ; ‘ he, like the rest, has no other business in lifo than to live. They had put the hams and marmalade into the boat, and when they threw him in the sea he swam very quietly to his companions. 4 What was the ship ?’ I asked. 4 A Spauiard,’ she replied. 4 After they had put the ship before tho wind, I saw a number of them on the poop on their knees orossiug themselves.’ _ 4 1 cannot understand,’ said I, 4 why this ship should be termed a Phantom. What could be more real thau these timbers and the requirements of tho people who navigate her V ‘Besides,’ exclaimed Imogene, 4 if she is a Phantom, how oouid Vanderdeoken write those letters in her which he is supposed to desire to send home ? If you have a real letter, such as a person can put into his pocket and deliver, \ you must have real material to produce it-ink, pens, paper, wafers and something hard to sit upon, or kneel upon, or write upon.’ * 4 Certainly 1’ said I. 4 Of a Phantom the whole must be phantasmal. Suppose a ghost dressod, its attire must bo as unsubstantial as tho essence it covers.’ 4 The truth about this ship is not known, she continued,’ 4 and it never can be known, because her influence is dreaded. Vessels on finding out her character fly from her, and thosß who sell to her unsuspectingly pass away without giving her further thought.’ 4 Or,’said I, gloomily, 'perils are never more hoard of.’ In this way would wo talk ; and you may conceive we were at no loss for topics. Onco she came into the cabin dressed in the pink dress with the high waist; and very sweet did she appear. But I said to her that of all the apparel she had shown me, nothiug pleased me better than tho black velvet jacket in which I had first seen her ; and thereafter she constantly wore it. In short, the clothes Vanderdeeken had stocked her cabin with, including much Hue linen, lace, collars, long gloves, shoes of several colours, and the like, were such as to suggest a costly theatrical wardrobe by reathe variety of styles, representing fashions from the middle of tho seventeenth centqry down to within twenty years of the time in which happened what I am here relating. It has been already explained how these things were gotten. You have only to consider that this ship sailed from Batavia in 1653 with a large stock of dresses, linen, jewelry, plate and so forth in her hold, besides her cargo, which stock Vanderdecken—in whom there must still work the thrifty instincts of the Hollander, just as he is suffered to love his pipe and bow! and pine for both when the tobacco and spirits have run out—had replenished by appropriating such wares, treasure and apparel aa ho had a fancy for out of the ships he encountered abandoned at sea or cast away upon the African coast. . Besides having all these strange ano often sui'iiptuous articles of attire to show mo and talk about, Imogene had a great deal to tell me concerning the weary years she tad spent in the vessel, wondering how her life was to end, how she was ever to get to England, or to any other civilised country, if Vanderd'ecken refused to let her leave him, because of his fatherly affection for her and his conviction that he vyas homeward bound and only temporarily delayed by the north'.west gales which’beat hirq blfck. Sfle said that after a time she began to fear that sho would lose her own language, and be able to speak no'tongue but the ancient Dstch in which yanderdecken and his men conversed, to preserve herself from which calamity she regularly perused tho collection of English poetry that the captaiu most fortunately had among his books. Her grief was that the book, instead of poems, was not the Holy Scriptures, but she knew many prayers and hymns her mother had taught her, and these sho never omitted reciting morning and night. “ I remember asking if shp knew: what religion yanderdecken was qf; she answered she did' not know for certain,' but that she had heard h-iffi spealc of his wife and faqiily as hayiqg wotghipped in fhe Gude Wfr Fenton,’, said she, I don’t, believe he js or was of any rcligipn at all. Van Vogelaar is a Calvinist ; he to,ld me so qne evening when I was speaking with surprise of Antony flans heing a Catholic, as it is almost impossible to reconcile the fatness of that man with the austerities and mortifications of his creed.’ 4 There oan bo no doubt, said 1, ' that Vanderdeoken was, when human like you and me, without religion. His shocking defiance, and the condemnation that followed, proved that he acted out of sheer sin in his soul, and not out of a passing passion. And yet you would have supposed that a Dutchman, no matter how secretly,impious, would have behaved with more discretion than this skipper.’ 4 1 daresay he would have been more discreet,’ said Imogene, 4 had he imagined what was to follow.’ It was in this way, and in such talk, that we killed those six days of sterm ; and now I come to other matters.

CHAPTER XXIII. The Gale Breaks.

On the sixth day, during dinner, Vanderdooken said we had seen the worst of the storm. There was a small lull in the wind, and a faintness sifting up, so to speak, from behind the peaks and valleys of the horizon into the sky all around, like a very dim awning of fair weather innumerable leagues distant yet. . . ~ «1 shall be glad to see the sun again, said Imogene, , , . . 4 Let us get quit of theße waters, exclaimed Vanderdeeken, moodily, and often dropping his knife and fork to take his beard in both bands and stroke it with a fixed look in his eyes, whioh would have made you Bwear

he beheld a vision, 4 and we shall have so much sun every clay climbing higher and higher, until it hangs right over our mastheads like a flaming shields so that the coolness of the Biscayan sea and the entrance of the English Channel shall be sweet as drink to a dry man.’ 4 Pray, mynheer,’ said I, * how far to the eastwards do you suppose this gale has driven us ?’

He looked at me with a sudden temper in his face as if he would crush me for daring to ask. Neverthel<»-s, he answered, but with a deep thrill in the rich tremble of his voice, ‘Aboutone hundred and fifty leagues, sir ; and what of that ?’ 4 Ay, and what of that ?’ exclaimed Van Vogelaar, who had turned a scowling eye on me on my asking this question. 4 Why, nothing, gentlemen,’ I answered, warned by the violet eyes.that dwelt upon me to slide out of the matter as quickly as I could. 4 The ground to be recovered is not great, and a pretty little south-east wind should float us, with square yards, rotnd the Cape in three or four days.’ Vanderdeeken made no response ; his eyes fell away from me to tho table, at which he gazed in the posture of one who dreams waking. Van Vogelaar, on the other hand, continued to stare at me for a long minute, which, aa he sat on my right hand and consequently had to turn hia head and hold his face toward mo, proved a very severe trial to my temper, insomuch that I could have beat him for his insolence,. It was as Vanderdeeken had said, the gale had broke and we might look for a clear sky presently, yet the sea still ran fearfully high, and the wash and weltering of it along the sea line that was now indifferently clear, suggested a vast sierra whose sides beyond were in sunshine, whilst over our trucks lay the sombre twilight of the tempest. There was still a fine rain in the air, though not such as to cloud the ocean, but I was so fascinated by the picture of the flyiDg Dutchman’s fight with tho mighty combers whioh rolled at her from the north and west, that I fingered gazing till I was pretty near as soaked as when I had been fished up and brought aboard. But a sailor makes no trouble of a wet jaoket so long as he has a dry shirt for hfs back, which I had, thanks to Vanderdeeken, who had been so good as to lend me several shifts of linen. I do not know that I ever saw or heard of a ship that threw from her such bodies of foam as did this vessel. She would rise at the sea buoyantly enough, ye. at every leanto to windward for. s giddy sliding swoop into the hollow, she hurled an enormous space of seething and spitting and flashing froth many fathoms from her, into which she would sink as though it were snow, arid so sejuatter, as ’tis terrqed, and lie there whilst you Height count to ten or fifteen, ere rising out of it to the irresistible heave of the next leviathan sea. By seven o’clock that night the gale was spent, and there was then blowing a breeze from the west-south-west. Dho swell rolled slowly from the quarter from which the yyind had stormed, and paused the Braave tq wallow most nausep.usly, bpt she grew a bit steadier after they had shaken the reefa out of the courses and fna^ e sail on her. I wafehed this business with deep interest. Vanderdeeken, standing on the poop, gave his orders to Van Vogelaar, on tho quarter-deck. The sailors went to work with true Dutch phlegm and deliberateness, taking plenty of time to unknot the reef-points, then carrying the fore and mainjeers to the capstan, and walking round without a song, sullen and silent. . There was no liveliness —none of the springing and jumping and cheerful heartiness you would expect in a crew who, after battling, through six days of black wfnds apd lashipg seas, were now looked down upop by a Ifeaven of stars, shining gisrio,ußly among a few slowly-moving ci,ouds. "After a little ,Vanderdeeken went below, aDd presently returned; bringing Imogene with him. On the poop ’twas all darkness save for the phosphorescence in the ship and the sea fire over the side. The captain and the lady came close before I distinguished them. 4 Fair weather at last, Mr Fenton 1 she exclaimed, after peering to make sure of me, and then stopping so aa to oblige Vanderdecken to stop too, for be had, her arm in his, 'and I think he meant to walk fp and fro the deck' with 'her. ‘ Yes,’ I replied, 4 Heaven is merciful, Such another six days I would not pass through for the wealth >0 this ship,’- ‘ Bray speak in Dutch, sir, that I may follow you, 1 said Yanderdecken, a oer \ tain stern and dignified courtesy. 4 If I could converse with ease, mynheer, said I, 4 1 should sneak in no. other language aboard this vessel.' As it is, I fear you do not catch half my meaning.. 1 ' 4 Qh, yes ! you are intelligible, sir,’ he answered, 4 though you sometimes use words whioh sound like Dutch, but signify nothNothing to you, my friend,’ thought I, 4 but I warrant them of good currency in the Amsterdam of to-day.’ In short his language was to mine, or at least to the smattering I had of the Batavian tongue, what th 6 speech in the time of Charles 11. would be to one of this century—-not very wide asunder, only that one would now and again

introduce an obsolete expression, whilst the other would occasionally employ a term created years after his colloquist’s day. ‘But it pleases me, captain, to speak in my own tongue,’ said Imogene. 4 1 should not like to forget my language.’ 4 It will be strange if you forget your language in a few months, my child 1’ he answered with a slight surprise. A sudden roll of the ship causing the great mainsail to flap, he started, looked around him and cried cut, with a sudden anger in his deep voice, to the steersman, 4 How is the ship’s head ?’ 4 North by east,’ was the answer. 4 We want no easting,’ he cried out again, with the same passion in his voice, and strode with vehemence to the binnacle, where stood. Antony Arents, who had charge of tho deck, and who had gone to view the compass on hearing the skipper call. 4 This will not do !’ I heard the captain say, his deep tones rumbling into the ear as though you passed at a distance a church in which an organ was played. *By the bones of my father, I’ll not have her break off ! Sweat your braces, man. Take them to the capstan 1 If we spring our masts for it she’ll have to head nothing east of north 1’ • There was a fierce impetuosity in his speech that made the delivery of it sound like a sustained execration. Arents went forward and raised some cries, I could see the figure of Vanderdeeken black against the stars, up and down which heslidedwith the heave of the ship. He was motionless, close to the binnacle, and I conld Imagine the stormy rise and fall of his broad and powerful chest under his folded arms. The watch came aft to the braces and strained at them. ’Twas a shadowy scene. There were none of those songs and choruses which seamen used to keep time in their pulling and hauling and to encourage their spirits withal. The boatswain, Jans, was on the forecastle attending the fore : Arents stood on the quarter-deok. Occasionally one or tho other shouted out an order which the dim concavities on high flung down again out of their hollows, as though there were ghosts aloft mocking at these labours. You saw tho pallid shinings writhing about the feet of the sailors, and the sharper scintillations of the wood-work wherever it was chafed by a rope. When they had trimmed, but not yet with the capstan, Arents called to the captain who returned an answer implying that the ship had come up again, and that the trim as it was would serve. Thereupon the men stole out of sight into tho darkness forward, melting into blackness as do visions of a slumberer into tie void of deep and dreamless rest ; Arents returned to the poop and stood near the captain, who held his place with the entranced stirlessness I was now accustomed to see in him. But, no doubt, his eyes were on the needle, afad had I dared approach, I might have beheld a fire in his eyes keener than the flame of the meah with which the binnacle was illuminated, . * You would know him as one not of this world,’ said Ito Imogene, 4 even should he pass you quickly in a crowd,’ 4 There are som o lines in the book of poetry downstairs whioh fit him to perfection,’ she answered. “ 4 Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face Bears a command in it ; though thy tackle’s torn, Thou sliew’st a noble vessel.’ ” 4 Ay,’ said I, 4 they are wonderfully pat; they might have been made for him.’ 4 Here are others,’ she continued, 44 4 He has, 1 know not tyhat^ Q,f greatness in his and of high fate^ That almost awes me,’ And when his moods change these versos always present : 4 . Read’st thou not something in my face that speaks Wonderful change and horror from within me ?’ ” She put a tragic note into her voice as Bhe recited : the starlight was in her eyes, and they were fixed on me ; her face whitened out to the astral gleaming till you saw her hair throbbing on her forehead to the blowing of the wind. She conljinned ; 4 1 could quote a’ score of passages marvellously trn® of tho captain and his fellows, scrying Indeed as revelations to ms, so keen a.re the eyes of poets. And little wonder,’ says she with a sigh, 4 for what eke have I had to read but that book of poetry !’ 4 Just now,’ said I, 4 he asked if you thought it likely you should lose your language in a few months. This plainly shows that he supposes he met with you in his passage from Batavia—that is his last passage, Now since his finding you dates neaily five years bach, and you tell me he has only memory for what happened within the past few months, how does it fall out that he recollects your story ?—which be certainly does, for he asked me if you had related it to me.’ 4 lt must be,’ she answered, because he is constantly alluding to it in speaking of the reception his wife and daughters will give me. It is also impressed upon him by my presence, by my frequently asking him to put me on board a homeward-going ship, and so it is kept on his mind as a thing conetantly happening—continually fresh.’

1 Suppose I 3houlii stay in this Bhip f° r six mouths, never speaking of the Saracen nor recalling the circumstance of my coming on board, you believe bis memory would drop the fact, nud that he would view me as one who happened to bo in the ship, and that’s all, his mind stopping at tha- - « How he would view you 1 cannot say ; but lam certain he would forget how you came here, unless there was incessant reference to the Saracen and to her men shooting at Van Vogelaar. But time would boar no Dart in this sort of recollection ; he would still be living in the year of God 165.-5, and sailing homo from Batavia ; and it lio thought at all, he’d imagine it was in that year that you came on board his ship. Meanwhile the giant figure of the Dutch captain stood motionless neat the binnacle ; close to him was the second mate, mmseit like a statue. The tiller-tackles, grasped by the helmsman, swayed him with every blow of the sea upon the rudder, yet oven his movements bad a lifelossness in them that wa3 as apparent as though the man had been stricken dead at his post, and swung there against the dancing stars. A quick jerk of tho ship causing Imogene to lose her balance, she grasped ray arm to steady herself by, and I took care she should not release mo. Indeed, from almost tho first hour of our meeting, there had been a yearning towards ms, a wistfulness of a mute sort underlying her demeanour, and this night I found assurance of it by her manner, that was not indeed clinging, having more of nestling in it, a 3 if I was her refuge, her one hope. Sue may have guessod I loved her. I cannot tell. My eyes may have said much, though I had not spoken. But there was that in her as she stood by my side with her hand upon my arm, that persuaded me her heart was coming to mine, and haply more quickly because of our sole mortality amid the substantial shadows of the Death Ship’s crew. You felt what that bond meant- when you looked around you and saw the dimly looming figure of Vanderdec ken beside the compass, the ghostly darkness of the second mate’s form, the eorpselike swaying of the helmsman, as of a hanging body moved by tho wind, and thought of the amazing human mysteries lost in the darkness forward, or slumbering in the hammocks, if, indeed, sleep was ever permitted to visit eyes which death was forbidden to approach. ’Twas as if Imogene stood on one side a grave, and I on the other, and clasped hands for the courage we found in warm and circulating blood, over a pit filled with a heart-freezing sight.

'We shall escape yet—fear not! ’ said I, speaking out of the heat of my own thoughts as though we wera conversing on that subjeot. ‘ May our Saviour grant it !’ she exclaimed. ‘See how blaok the white water around the Bhip makes her in spite of the strange fires which glow everywhere ! ’ I felt her shiver as she cried, * The vessel seems to grow more terrible to fancy. It may be because we have talked so much of her, and yonr views of Vauderdecken and the crew have raised terrifying speculations in me.’ •We Bhall escape yet!’ I repeated, hotly, for the very sense of our imprisonment and the helplessness of our condition for tho time being, that might be long in terminating, was a thought so maddening that I felt in a temper to defy, scorn and spit in the face of the very Devil himself, was he to appear. Butjjl had her right hand pressed to my heart, ’twas sure she felt the comfort of it, and "together for some while in silence we stood viewing the ship, the fabric of whose hull stood out as though lined with Indian ink upon the ashen tremble of froth that seemed to embrace her length like shadowy, white arms, as the wind blowing mildly into her sails forced her to break the water at her stern as she elided athwart the swell. I clasped my brow with bewilderment m my brain. ‘Surely,’ I cried to my companion, ‘I am dreaming. It cannot be that I at this moment am standing on the deck of the Death Ship !’ 'We must have patience, courage, and hope, Mr. Fenton,’ she said, softly. ‘Look at that starry jewel yonder,' and she turned up her face to the cross that hung above the mizzen topmast head, gleaming very gloriously in a lake of deep indigo betwixt two clouds. *lt shines for me ! and often have I looked up at it with full eyes and a prayer in my heart; It shines for you too ! It is the emblem of our redemption, and we must drink in faith that God will succor us from it.’

She continued to gaze at it, and there was sheen enough to enable me to see a tender smile upon her upturned face. How sweet did she then appear, fairer than the ‘ evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars,’ as the poet wrote. I looked ,np to that sparkling Cross and thought how strange it was that the Sentenoe pronounced upon this ship should doom her to sail eternally over waters above which there nightly rises the lustrous symbol of Compassion and Mercy. 'Take my arm, my child ; ’.tia chilly work standing,’ said the deep voice of the captain.

Again had he come upon us unawares, but this time he found us silent, together gazing at the Cross of stars. She withdrew her hand quickly from my arm and . took his, showing wisdom in her promptness, as I was quick to see, Then, being alone, I went to the quarter deck and fell to walking briskly. For Vandordecben was right, the wind came bleak.

(To bo continued.)