A DESPERATE BRIDEGROOM.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10629, 5 December 1910, Page 6

A DESPERATE BRIDEGROOM.

(By Albert Payson Terhune.)

Chapter I. "You've heard about the ship that went down in sight of port?" observed Clyde Maxwell. "Well, for sheer bad luck, I've got- that ship looking like a golden argosy of joy. And this I am sure T can show you." "Is it a matter of life and death?" asked the, purser.

"Life and.death? Worse Vi ' "I wish I could help you out," said the purser, -watching .the tall, ulsterclad man with a new interest. "Is it — is it anything you'd care to -tell me about? Not that I've got any authority to help you out," he added as a cautious afterthought. "I've explained that to you already." -"You certainly have. So has the captain. So lias the health officer. So has; everybody in sight. You're an exception to the rest, in one way—you're the only soul on :the ship -who has shown the faintest interest in my possible reasons for wanting to get ashore. The I rest all—"

"You say it's 'worse than a matter of life and- death,'" explained the purser; "so I suppose it's something with a story to it.. That's why I asked. That and because you and I have been good friends since tho old' business college davs. But if vou'd rather not tell—" *

"It's a relief to jabber it to some cue. Here goes. 1 told you I was engaged. Well, I'm on my way home to my wedding. The date set for it is March Ist—day after to-morrow. I had to make this European trip for the firm. The ship was .scheduled to dock at NewYork on February 25th—two days ago. I figured out that, I'd have fully three days' leeway. Then came the broken shaft that delayed' lis two days, and, now that we've struck quarantine, comes this diphtheria scare. And we're all held up, by law, for two days longer, till they find, out whether there'll be any more cases to—"

should dare accost the great Bird Seed Trust president. "Stand free of that gangway!"

"Mr M'Cue,". implored Maxwell, "I beg you will take me along. It is necessary—much depends on —" He got no further. A shove from the captain pushed him away from the gangway. And Mr M'Cue balanced by two sailors, had begun his descent of the ladder. Before Clyde could recover his lost ground, the bird-seed magnate had entered his launch, and the little craft was puffing shoreward. - "What d'ye mean by interfering like that ?" T snarled the captain, glowering at Maxwell.

-"I get the idea.- You're liable to be late for your wedding. Hard luck! But you can send the girl word by wireless, can't you? She'll surely understand. Tn two days you'll be able to land. Let's see. This is February 27 th. Twenty-eight days in February, aren't there ? Two days after this will—will bring it up to March 2nd. The wedding need be put off only one day. And —" "You don't understand," cried Maxwell. "That has nothing to do- with it. Here's the idea. Miss Sylvia Tennant—the girl I'm going to marry—is my third cousin. I've known her since she was a child. We've always been in love with each other. Our families always favored the match —especially her grandfather. He died last year, leaving six hundred and twenty thousand dollars. According to his will, the money was to be divided equally between Sylvia and myself—" "Good old grandpa!" put in the purser..

"On condition,"/-"resumed Clyde, "that we marry each other on or before her twenty-first birthday. A.fool sort of a will, wasn't it? But his heart was set on the match. And he didn't believe in long engagements." "Nobody would believe in them,"

chuckled the purser, "if there was six hundred and twenty thousand dollars waiting at their end. You're a lucky chap, Maxwell. For a struggling young lawyer to come into three hundred and ton thousand dollars, and to marry a girl with the same amount of wealth, seems almost too good to be true." "Tt is too good to be true," groaned Clyde. "That's the trouble. I mighthave known it could never happen. I'm the original Jonah from Jonahopolis." "Hasn't thrown you over, has she?"

"No, but—" "She, won't be silly enough to break the engagement, just because you're held up a couple days on a quarantined boat?"

"No, no! But her twenty-first birthday falls on the Ist of March. That's all. Now, do you see?" The purser whistled long and reflectively.

"I understand!" he exclaimed. "You are in bad, for a fact. The wedding scheduled for March Ist, a fortune depending on it, and you booked to get to town one day late. Say! I've got an idea. "Why not send for Miss Tennant to come down here and marry you on shipboard? That would —" "That would be fine!" scoffed Maxwell. "Only, you seem to forget no one but health officers are allowed to board the ship or to leave it. I believe the law even forbids any private boats to come within a_ hundred yards of us. So there we are."

"But, can't the will bo set aside, or

"No, We all agreed to it, and it has been probated. Unless Sylvia and I are married day after to-morrow, the six hundred and twenty thousand dollars reverts to the Sqmething-or-Other Charitable Guild. The i.kl chap wasn't really so much a crank, though, as you might think. "He knew Sylvia and I were in love with each other. He knew I was too hard up to marry. He knew I would be too proud, as a poor man, to marry an heiress. So he divided the money between us, and made that little proviso against a long engagement. It all seemed for the best. "Audit would have been, if I hadn't got delayed on his co.nfounded old floating hospital of a broken-down liner. "Easy—easy, old man!" laughed the purser. "Remember, I'm supposed to have a certain amount of loyalty .for the ship, and I don't enjoy hearing her roasted.like that. It's your own fault you're in such a hole. Why did you wait so long ? If I'd been in your shoes I'd have been married on the very day the will was read. I wouldn't have waited till the eleventh hour and taken chances on some accident like this." "We planned to marry two months ago—just before I sailed for England. She was coining with me for a wedding trip. But her mother fell ill, and we bad to postpone the wedding for her sake. Don't rub it in. I'm so sore I wish I had a third foot to kick myself with. Here I'm robbing the girl I love. I don't mind my own loss. I can always earn some sort of a living. But to think I'm making her lose a fortune! I'm not going to do it, either!" be went on fiercely.

"What are you going to do about

"Do about it? I've nearly fortyeight hours left. We are at anchor off Staten Island, not a quarter of a mile from shore. Ferries are running between Staten Island and New York every few minutes. In one hour from now I could be at Sylvia Tennant's door. I could be with the girl I love, and I could save six hundred and twenty thousand dollars—all in one hour. * Do you think I'll lose that chance for the sake of all the quarantine that ever happened? Not I." "And perhaps carry diphtheria germs to her by way of a wedding-present?" "Nonsense!- The health officer hirii-

self says it's probably only tonsilitis-; and even if it's something worse, all the half-dozen eases are in the steerr age or the second cabin. I haven't been brought into contact with any of them. It's worth the risk. And I'm going to try it." "How?" queried the purser, with incredulous amusement.

"If you ask as an officer of the ship, it's none of your business. If you ask as a friend I-don't-know. Hallo! I thought no private craft were allowed alongside?" •The two men were leaning over the vessel's port rail, their gaze on the hilly shores of Staten Island. From the Rosebank wharf a natty white launch had chugged out into the gray, icestrewn water. It was now Hearing the vessel, and "rounded to" at the foot of the hanging companion ladder. Several men, members of the crew, were lugging one or two trunks to the companionway. Just behind "them, escorted by the obsequious captain, walked a portly, middle-aged man/ "Isn't that the chap you pointed out to me vesterday as old 'M'Ghe, president of the Bird Seed Trust?" asked Clyde. "That's the man," assented the purser. "Don't you envy him? He's'to be an exception to the rule that holds the rest of lis here. - By special permis-, sion. You see, he's one of the directors of the line, and— "Where are you go-; ing?" <■ ■-■•; ■ ■ Maxwell had left his friend, and was racing across'the-twilight deck. He halted in front of the captain and M'Cne as they reached the head of the companionway. ''Pardon me, - Mr M'Cne," he began. "I am to be married March Ist. A for-

from the spar. Clyde clenched his teeth over his tongue to keep from crying for help as the rowers faded away into the gloom. But the picture of his own humiliation and the prospect of losing his one chance held him silent.

tune depends on it. May I go ashore with you ? I will pay for my—" "Step back!" thundered the captain, aghast that art ordinary passenger

He was in no distant danger of drowning. He could hang on to this spar for hours before numbness would shake toff: his the slimy wood. ■-■■■■ -'"■

If he floated out toward sea, there was always a chance of some incoming craft hearing his hail and picking him up. And no rescuer need know he had come froJnSaLquaxantinedship. It was" a chance and "he resolved to take? it. He shut his eyes and held on. ' "The chill was creeping all over him now,; and his teeth were chattering. He was seized by a ridiculous desire to sleep. He tried once' to climb atop the spar. But before his numbed nruscles the task, the fragment of mast rolled over. He was knocked off under water. Only by a. mighty effort could he. catch a fresh hold on his treacherous support. Thus, it seemed, centuries of time crawled by.

"What do you mean by letting one man break quarantine, and not another?" snapped Clyde. "M'Cue can carry infection to the land as well as I can. Besides, if. he can go, why can't I?" :■ '

"I don't wish to argue with you; young man," said.the captain loftily as he moved* away."' "You won't.get the chance," retorted Maxwell: "for I'm going to leave this ship, by fair means or foul." "If 1 hear any more threats of that sort from you," howled the captain, "I'll put you in irons! You'd have mo fined or would you, for letting you go ashore in defiance of the health officer's orders, and maybe spread disease germs all over New York? I'll have you ironed if 3-011 make one attempt to—"

Suddenly, as the drowiness was growing too powerful to be longer combatted, something grated underneath the spar. The wood shook, floated a second longer, then came to a standstill with a slight shock. Light as was the impact it served to loosen Clyde's stiffened hold. PTo sank —into three feet of water!

"Very good!" shouted Clyde, reckless with impotent fury as lie shook aside the heavv ulster. "Try it, if vou can! I'm off!"

. The feeling of hard, rough sand under his feet jerked the man back to life. He looked up. Above him, not twenty feet away, rose the bank. The spar, caught in an eddy, had drifted ashore, a half mile or so south of Quarantine Station. ,

.With one'hand on the rail, Maxwell vaulted over the side, kicked his.heel against the projecting ledge, reversed, and plunged head downward into the water far below.

It was a pretty dive. And it was executed not only, with the skill of a trained swimmer, but with a suddenness that left the captain gaping, openmouthed, with dumb -amaze.

Clyde Maxwell was still too numb to | stand. On all fours, groaning and panting',- he scrambled weakly to land. There, forcing himself to kick to twist quickly about, he at last restored some semblance of life to his deadened-body. Staggering up the bank, more than once falling from sheer fatigue, the drenched, exhausted man found .himself a mile or so away from a lighted village. Beyond the far houses he saw a train moving northward, toward the New York ferry. The sight put new life into him. He reeled onward a few yards. But the longing for sleep had come back upon him with redoubled force. He lurched sideways and fell. As he struck the frozen ground, some hard, bulky object in. his hip pocket was pushed painfully against his thigh. Dully, he wondered what it was. Then he remembered. His pocket flask! With stiff, sensationless fingers he hauled the thing from his pocket, knocked off the neck against a stone (his fingers were far too numb to manage the cork) and set the flask to his lips.

CHAPTER 11. —A Leap in the Dark.— Now, the distance from a liner's second deck to the water below does riot look very great. A diver will speedily find it far longer than it appears. Also, a man who,'under ordinary circumstances, can readily swim a mile or more in moderately cool salt water, will find it quite another thing to swim twenty strokes in a February sea that is thick with .floating ice fragments. The more so, if he he weighted bv shoes and clothing. As Clyde Maxwell, expert swimmer, struck- water, the chill of it bit his very bone. He sank, like a plummet, the cold numbing his every faculty. Dimly he realised he must swim as never before, if-he would counteract this. He was coming to the surface. With arms and legs, he struck out madly. At first his numbed limbs almost refused to obey him. His heart seemed hammering in his throat, choking him. . As he came up, he was aware of the liner's side, rising, miles upon miles, like a topless precipice, above his head. To the right, far away, through the gathering twilight, glowed the lights of Eosebank and of the Quarantine Station. In that direction he began to swim.

A deep draft of the- fierce, biting liquid. Then another. And -warmth began to, replace the deadly chill of his body.

His clothes held him back. Once his

head came in contact with a bit of floating ice, with a force that almost stunned him. He could hear, as though from a vast distance, the captain's booming voice, howling orders. Clyde Maxwell knew that a boat would be lowered at once and sent in search of him. He knew, too, that no swimmer can hope to keep headway against a rowboat. But the night was fast settling down. By that dim light, and amid so many fragments of flotsam and dirty ice, he might possibly hope to avoid observation.

:He got to his feet. Every movement was pain. But lie could move. And he no longer yearned l for sleep. He stumbled onward toward the town. In the middle of a vacant lot stood a little one-storey wooden building, rough-hewn, unpainted. It was apparently a toll-house. Prom between the gaping boards streaks of warm red light streamed out. A tin chimney poured forth smoke.

Maxwell climbed a low fence and crossed the field toward the tiny shack. The prospect of warmth was too strong for the chattering man to resist. In another minute he had groped his way through the dark, to the side of the building. There he paused. How was he to account for his soaked clothes, his tremendous fatigue? Yet, so tempting was the mental vision of a warm room that he did not hesitate.

Shore was less than a quarter mile away. If he could gain its shelter unseen, he might readily get to New York within an hour or so. It was worth the chance. Ordinarily, Clyde would have thought ■little enough of such a swim, even fully dressed as he was. But now, every stroke was anguish.. Yet it comforted'him-to note that as he continued swimming, the first numbness begau to wear off, to be succeeded, in fact, by a certain glow of physical reaction. He was young, barely twentyfive, and in fine physical condition. Where many a man would have sunk, through shock and exhaustion, he battled on.

.He was. feeling his way around the shanty in search of the door, when a. truly terrifying voice from within broke upon the silence of the winter night.

"Hist!" growled the voice, with an odd mixture of gruffness and natural soprano quality. "We must dissemble I Should the minions of the law track lis to our lair in these mountain fastnesses, all would be lost. As we depart hence, let each man make his own way homeward. We must not he seen together, lest some shrewd sleuth suspect that the Dauntless Pirates of Staten Island are—"

He swam for what seemed hours. The yellow shore lights through the gray murk appeared to draw little nearer. . The tide was almost at ebb. So he must swim up-stream at an angle of 45 degrees, to make any straight course. A strong man, a young man, a trained swimmer, Clyde Maxwell found himself confronted with the hardest task of his life. It was an athletic contest where the prize was a safe landing; where loss meant a decidedly unpleasant form of death. The numbness was all gone how. His body seemed to burn, as the blood stung to the surface in defiance to the surrounding cold. But his clothes weighed a ton, and his first burst of physical prowess was failing. He longed unspeakably for a minute's rest, that he might get second-wind and call upon his wearied muscles for a newer, stronger effort. But he dared not float, lest' some cross-current sweep him out to sea. Turning, he swam on his back, to shift the strain. At the second stroke, some gigantic invisible hand apparently gripped his right leg in an agonising ■• clasp that doubled the limb right under him. "Cramp!" he muttered to himself. "This won't do. It'll spread to the other leg or to my body; and then I'm

"Say, Tim!" interrupted another treble voice, "ma says I can't be a Dauntless Pirate after next Saturday. "She saj'S it's nonsense to—"

■ "Peace!" thundered the first speaker. "What have we here? Rank mutiny, varlet, I—" "Tim," put in a third pirate, "if old Masterson ever gets on to our using his tool shed for a pirate lair, he'll—" "Cheese it!" suddenly whispered the chief of the Dauntless Pirates of Stateri Island. "Someone's outside! I heard j>

"It's Masterson!" squealed another. "He'll—" Terror smote the Dauntless ones. Blind, unreasoning terror. There was. a

scuffle. A rickety door, not three feet from where Maxwell stood, burst open. Half a dozen small boys dashed forth at top speed. At a safe distance they turned and shrilled a wild defiance to their unseen grown-up foe. Then, evidently fearing pursuit, they vanished homeward. Maxwell lurched into the deserted "lair." The warmth and comfort of the place stretched forth and enveloped' him. He entered, shut the creaking door behind him and looked about. The room was about twelve feet by twelve in area. The walls were of unplaned shoring, the tarred flat roof low. The place was hot to suffocation. In one corner was a pile of farming implements. In the centre of the apartment stood a cheap, air-tight stove, red hot. On the floor beneath it a heap of driftwood.

a goner." "■■■■ -.'■:- His shoulder struck against some rough_ : surf ace. Instinctively, he threw out his arm to seize or push away the obstruction. He had come alongside a great splinter of mast, some twelve feet in length and-as thick as his own body. At the same instant his other leg doubled under him with an excruciating wrench of pain. The swimmer threw an arm over the .broken spar and hung there exhausted, helpless, trying to force his knotted leg-muscles to straighten out from their chill-induced cramp.

A table held two candles, and was fur burdened by a feast of rough sandwiches, new roasted potatoes and similar viands. A skull and crossbpnes in charcoal covered half the door. Old coats and other farm-clothes hung from pegs on the wall. Such was the Dauntless Pirates' lair.

For the moment, he -rt-as safe. This bit of wreckage had been whirled hither and yon, for weeks perhaps in the thousand tides, currents,-and'eddies of the sea. It might even be a vestige of some wreck on the Labrador or the Florida coast. It and himself—two atoms of hopeless jetsam—had been brought into accidental, touch, in his hour of dire need. ...

Clyde Maxwell paid scant heed at first to his surroundings. ...■."•.;'/ • Scarce had he. spread his blue fingers in front of the stove when he began to divest himself of his clothing. Each wringing wet garment he hung up near the red-hot centre of warmth. Then, with a cast-off jumper that he found lying among the tools, he set .to work vigorously to rub himself down. Soon, he was not only in a glow, but in perspiration 7 as well/ The menace of pneumonia was past. There had been nine chances in ten that such exposure as he had undergone would bring on congestion ■of the' lungs. The. hut had providentially afforded; the tenth chance. Warmed, in a glow, rested from his exertions, Maxwell'all. at once realised that he was hungry. "I'm afraid," he "murmured, "I'll have to be an unbidden guest at the Pauntless Pirates' board." His meal over, and his clothing dry, lie redressed, and prepared l to go. He laughed'softly-to himself at the-tame ending of his rash adventure. | ' He had sprung melodramatically from the rail of an ocean liner, had plunged into ice-laden waters, had battled' like mad"with grim death, had eluded pursuit and had saved his well-nigh extinct life. ' 'He had ~ come ashore, found warmth, food and a place to dry his clothes.

There he clung, panting; exhausted, in agony. And, with the cessation of his own motion, he could''' hear the steady slap-slap-slap of water against the prow of a fast-moving'boat, and the steady churn of rower' blades. ' The boat was coming.; The boat sent from the liner to find his body or to bring him back to legaL.captivity. At the thought, his blood ran warm again and his slack jaw set firmly. He had risked life in •'thatVinadCeffort to reach sliore, to reach the girl he lovecL, to save her from poverty. Was he to be-hanled iqrth .ignom'iniously from the'water, lugged back to the ship and be perhaps clapped into irons? A pretty wind-up,' was it not/: to so wildly daring a. venture? The thought roused his cooling rage to fever point. :

The boat was drawing .'very'near. It was perhaps midway between the liner [and the shore. Lying there alongside of his spar, Clyde could see the-craft silhouetted against-' the paler 'eastern sky-line.: Four -.men were :• rowing. In the bow stood a .petty officer,- ;bendirig forward, and .scanning*.the 'waters. A white-capped' coxswain was at the tilleri: "He can't have come much .farther in this time," the standing man was saying. "Either we're close to him, of else he's sunk. Most likely -he?s gone down. It's ten to one against any-'one. keeping afloat in zero water like that." He spoke indifferently, as if commenting on some impersonal fact.' Clyde Maxwell, barely fifty feet away, heard him and illogically resented the" fellow's calm. . , f|

All that remained wasto walk a mile to the nearest station, board a'train for the ferry, then take a boat to New York, and arrive at Sylvia Tennant's home almost in time for dinner. - The adventure promised to end tamely enough.'- Now that it' was all over, I he half-wished there had been one'or 1 two more details of excitement v in it. It would make better telling. He was fully dressed again, even to the tweed l sea-cap which, jammed down to his ears, had somehow stayed on his head -throughout the icy swim. Nothing about him would suggest to. the casual eye a man who had illegally escaped from a quarantined ship. It had heen a big risk. He saw that, now. But it was over. And' Sylvia and the. six hundred and twenty thoiu sand dollars were well worth the superhuman task he had accomplished. Clyde stepped to the door and opened i it. A blast of chill air made him shiver. To go as he was, from that I hot room out into the windy February night would be suicidal. He wished yearningly for the heavy | ulster he "had shed when he jumped

-: "Hold hard!" called the steersman suddenly,' rising in his seat and pointing toward Maxwell. "There he .is!"

' "Where?' Oh, over/there? c 'You idiot, that thing's twelve feet long. It's a broken spar." "I thought I saw it move. It—"

"Move? Every wave makes it bob up and down. Give way there!"—to,the rowers —"Keep hor a point more upstream, Saunders. He'd make for shore at the nearest point—not so far down as this."

The boat swept by, not forty-feet

overboard. Then his eye fell on the row of old clothes on the wall.

"I'll have to borrow something more," he told himself. "I can send it back by express or bring it back myself when the honeymoon's over. And I'll slip the owner a dollar or two by way of rent."

He was glancing over the motley assortment of garments, as he spoke. All were evidently such clothing as a man I might keep in barn or shed to wear while working in the field's. From under a line of battered overalls, jumpersj jackets and torn sweaters, Clyde fished out; at last an overcoat. Its sleeves were frayed. It was shiny at fclbow. Several buttons .were gone. There was dried mnd here and there on its worn plaid surface. But the coat was warm and big. Maxwell brushed away the mud, dusted the mangy plush' collar and slipped into the garment. - Then, fastening it as best he could, he put on his cap again and set forth, .turning his back upon the hospitable lair of the Dauntless Pirates.

as he started briskly toward the railroad track, his buoyant spirit seemed to fail. Now that all peril was apparently over, he felt an odd sense of impending trouble. (To he continued.)