NEW SEBIAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4902, 17 March 1894, Page 1

NEW SEBIAL.

The proprietors of the Canterbury Times ■ have secured the rights of a now story by E. L. Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne, joint authora of "Tho Wrecker," one of the most successful novels published last year. The new tale ia entitled "THE EBB TIDE," and like ita predecessor,, " The Wrecker," deals with life in the sunny Southern Seas. Iv many respects the story ia superior to the authors' previona effort, and ia told in cheraeteristic Stevensonian style, which is a guarantee of its excellence aa an interesting and entertaining work of fiction. The following BKIEF SYNOPSIS of the opening chapters is a prelude to the exciting narrative which follows : — Three men find themselves in a companionship of beggary and vagrancy in tho island of Tahiti. They are two Londoners, Robert Herrick, well horn and educated, hut with no capacity for making his way in life, and yet tormented with shame at his failure and decline, and a "badhearted cockney clerk," Huish by name, but known indifferently as Tompkins or Hay, and auAmerican, Captain John Davis, alias Brown, .fled to escape punishment for losing hi, ship, Sea Ranger, and six lives by being drunk at a critical time. The three men are rescued from a misery all but mortal by Davis's getting command of the schooner Farcllone, "ont of 'Frisco for Sydney, in California champagne," which has lost her officers in midvoyage by small-pox. Davis confides to Herrick that he intends to steal tho ship and cargo by making .some other port than Sydney, and selling both one ; and it requires all M 3 persuasion to bring- Herriclc, who, miserable as he , is, still wants to be honest, to ship with him as mate. Huish is not admitted to the secret, the other two holding him j iv great contempt. Early in the voyage bad blood is stirred between him and the captain, and Herrick and the captain have hinted to each other a fear of more serious trouble with Huish. Theu Huish and the captain fall under the spell of the cargo of champagne and give themselves up to drunkenness, leaving the burden of sailing the ship on Herrick. A storm comes on, and they narrowly escape repeating the fatal history of the SeaKauger. Herrick denounces the captain to his face aud refuses to lend a hand further in the enterprise, but is mollified by a promise of the captain to keep sober through the remainder of the voyage. Then they discover that the cargo of champagnewhich tliey hadresolved to steal is mostly water, shipped, apparently, to defraud the insurance companies, aud that the vessel itself is of little worth} and also that through the drunken neglect of the captain they have nearly exhausted their stores, and are threatened with starvation before they can make land. But an uncharted island comes conveniently in their path, and making- it they find a yjUago which has been all but depopnJated by small-pox. Here they secure an i mpor taut acquaintance in Mr Attwater, an Englishman of good birth and breeding, and apparently proprietor d_ the island. He invites them to dinner, but stirs tho animosity of Davis and Huish by treating them with open contempt while greeting Herrick oefore them as an equal. Davis demands that HeTrick allure liim on board in order that they •may possess themselves of the pearls in which he divines that Attwater is trading. The first instalment of the story will appear in the issue of MAE'JH 22. j