"STAR" TALES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7583, 23 December 1902, Page 4

"STAR" TALES.

- ■ » THE VENGEANCE OF ADAM ROOK. (By TOM GALLON.) It scarcely masters how, or in what Way, the wrong done to Adam 'Rook first grew and magnified in his mind, until it absorbed his life; this story has not to do with his wrongs, but with the vengeanoe that gripped and held him like a lever, and poisoned all his life. He began rather well— this Adam Rook. Born of" respectable parents, in a small manufacturing town in the North of England, he rose, by steady industry, to something greater than, those from whom he sprang could have, imagined. Grim, and squarely built, and determined, he shoved his dogged way among men, until he came oat before them, and led them. And, at the moment when his way seemed clear, and all the calm and peaceful world was at Ms feet, there rose a smiling woman in his path, to change that world for him. She was a good woman— in the sense; at least, that she meant well; hej* one vice ■was the vice of weakness. She had, at first, an admiration for this strong, forceful man, who dominated her; she leaned upon Ida strength, and was quite content. To make an ordinary story as short as possible, let it be baldly stated that they marrjed; that she grew tired, in course of time, of what she termed his .commonplaceness; and that she listened ■to the voice of the tempter, when, in due course, that tempter came. , The tempter was Fergrus Wade, . and he v had those qualities which appealed. to the softer, weaker side of the woman. In the end, the old story was repeated, . and Lucy Rook started life again, With the wrong . man. . . . . . . . • *. , : \ ■•■ . Quite incidentally and quite unconsciously, Lucy Rook wrecked three lives at the moment of her flight. She wrecked her own, because disaster swiftly followed; she wrecked that of her lover, because she marked him down for a vengeance as cruel and swift and silent as death itself; she \frecked that of her husband, because she stripped him, in a moment, of all that he priied, and left him beggared Adam Rook, when he first realised what had happened, did a frightful thing. He laid his house -bare ;. he broke and smashed every article that had belonged to her, and had been precious in his sight for her dear sake; he left all that he had builfc up to go to rack and ruin. And he swore that vengeance {hat was thereafter to occupy his life. ; r . ■■■■•.•■• "God of Justice," he prayed, on his knees amid the wreck of (his home— "give this man into my, -hands! Grant me the power to track him through the wide earth— to hunt him down— to shed his blood, as he has shed the blood of my heart! uive him into my hands;, stay his " feet on any road that, he might travel, till I reach him, and beat and bruise 'him beneath my feet! God of Justice— deliver irim into my hands!" Thereafter,' with the dogged stern simplicity that belonged •to him, he set out upon that mission. This strong, hardgrained man of business flung all his hopes and fortunes to the winds, and set out upon a lonely journey, with that prayer always in his heart. Knowing no language but his own, he yet found his way among tfcrange people, a-nd into strange places; Mid ever before him went the fugitives. They had had a thought that in time he •night, tire, and migihj. return to his own; way of life,' and leave them to theirs ;"thteyi, did not know the man. Bach night, in strange and lottery places of the earth, he slept — a common wayfarer — with, the prayer upon his lips that the coming day might bring Mm and the ioan who ihad wronged him face to face; the dawa of; ; each new day saw himiTise, with the hope . that the sun might go down upon his wrath, and cc« it ended. I It will scarcely be believed that for ! three long years he kept up the hunt— < > that for -three long years the hapless woman and the man fled before him, with noj fest, and pursued by fears. He came uponi •■■."■ them at last, in a little out-of-the-way hut. •■' i— miscalled an inn— in Norway. He crept ■ V >P to tflie place at nightfall, only to find that the man had fled again, aid tha« ' the woman was alone. There was a. reason lor her staying behind; she was' dying. ! 'She died that night, upon- his breast; her "last words were a plea for mercy fotf '■ tfce man who had .wronged' him, anid de- ; eerted her. " Looking down .upon. Oier, as she l»y dead, his heart hardened more than *ver towards the man; the vow he hadl mada seemed to stand out, in words of fire, upon the. dark walls of the place wherein he sat with his dead. He went, on, -• ■. igain, with scarce a moment's pause, onj the track of his enemy. \ It would 1 be impossible to recount all his : -wanderings or alt that hßppemed "to him, .'J' \n the time before his story ended. But tie became known — this man of the white - Vair, and the lined! face; and the grim-set jaw was a thing to be pointed at, aati his 1 Story told in whispers. He oanre like ai jhost among the living joyous mem andi women of 'his time; death was in his eyes, $ad the name of one man. on; his lips. And it>,. still in. that grim pursuit, he passedi pver, in time, to America. It might be that in that great place the \ fugitive was safe— that, amidst the .crowds \here, the hunted one might lose his identity, a<nd be hunted no . more. But tha Strong purpose that was as the life of '*A.<ki!m Rook was -the strong purpose that could have overcome an. army ; ha paused)' for nothing— was daunted by 2ft>|nng ; _ all "taen and women: were mere details 1 , meajuang nothing. Before Mm always he sawtie flying figure of the man who had! wrdng-. ,W him. ■'• •■'. They met once, under strange circum-. •*ta.nces. After counties* journeys, amd> iruch doubling and re-doubling on tno track, he heard that Fergus Wade ihad; been ne*m in a little Western, town, a-t *h& ! b&i<e wf the Rocky Mountains ; he set off for the £lace at once. Even there his purpose wag

known, and. had been noised about; it w<is known tliat, although apparently a peaceful man, he went armed, and had that desperate purpose in his mind. Fate played him a trick. He got within a hundred yard's of the man he sought. Think of it: after three years of wild roouring of Europe and America, he actually saw the man he wanted, fairly and! equa.re.ly in front of him ! He might have shot him. where he was ; but that would have been too easy. The man would have died, without knowing who had killed him ; there was no vengeance in that. He wanted to meet him face to face ; he wanted to see him on his knees, begging for mercy ; he wanted to kill him slowly. He crept nearer and nearer scarcely daring to breathe in his anxiety. He saw his man enter a small log. cabin, in which he had been living for some months; he crept to the door". Then it was that his vengeance was snatched away from him. . At the very moment that he was about to enter the place, a roving band of Indians descended upon.it, and captured him and his enemy. Firing the place, they carried the two men off into the forest, securely bound, and almost touching each, other as they walked. " A moment more aaid I would have killed you," sa^ Adam Rook, fiercely, as they went along. " An hour more, and they'll kill us both, replied the other, coolly. " You've come a long way for this, ■Adam Rook, only to be cheated at the last," ; 'he added, with a laugh.* " No—not cheated ; that shan't happen, exclaimed Rook, fiercely. "No man' shall kill" you, except myself; I have waited too long, to have you snatched oup of my hands now. Til tear you away from them ; i'd snatch you out of any fire they ■built for you. I have not cqme so. long asnd : so weary a journey for nothing." In' the night, "while they and their captors slept about a fire in the woods,. Adam Rook awoke, to find that Wade hatt escaped. Mad with rage, : and scarcely knowing what he did, he broke his bonds (bands of steel could not have held, him then) ' and went after the man. He had to fight his ■vrajy— tnis ; man who had once been, a plain, staid, city merchant— through a mob of 'them-, .beforei he got away ; but he escaped. They might as well have triad to hold a raging torrent. Once moTe, armed only with, a heavy club, he set out into the wilderness, to find Fergus Wade. He came to a small mining camp—starved, bruised, bleeding and half-mad. There they cared for him, in their rough, kindly fashion, aid got him back to some semblance of life. But still the fierce^ fire of his vengeance burned. with a steady flame ; still he saw before him, in every prospect, his enemy going on ahead. In that semimadness he told theiri what his purpose , he openly threatened the life of, this j man. It must be remembered, that he, woB a stranger to them, while the mail had been, for some time, one of themselves. Itmust be remembered, also, that in; those days, and in those places, the law dealt by man to man was :strong and rough and swift. ; '■' ' ; .-■"'■■ * There floated to him one day a rumour that the man was near; that he 'hqd been seen quite close to the place the day ; before. Weak as he was, Adam, Rook leaped from his bed 'and set off in pursuit again. : • ■ . ! It was near nightfall when he came at last upon the man. With a. crafty knowledge he had gained in those parts, he had followed the track of the man over the soft earth, as he^ might have followed the! spoor J of a wild beast. The sun— sinking bloodred behind the trees— gave its final light to the final scene of that tragedy. For he came upon the man lying upon his face on ! the bare .ground — dead. . In that solemn place, and in that solemn hour, God had snatched from him his vengeance. He had been almost in touch, with Wade since the early morning of that day ; had come upon broken branches, with the sap green and wet in them, ; as the other man's hand had torn them down. Yet here he lay, stone dead— killed .by anotherhand." „ . It was evident that the motive had been ,r6bbery. The man's rifle was gone, and the' few coins he had had ; probably some wanderer, poorer than himself, had done the deed. But that mattered nothing to! Adam ; Rook. He knelt . beside the body, and raised his hands to high Heaven, and wept because his vengeance^ was taken from him. Frantically h^ strove to caJl the man back' to life ; sat the ghastly thing -up in "the dying light, and peered into its eyes, and spoke its name. But all in vain. Meanwhile, in the little camp, Adam, Rook had been missed, and that old rumour of his purpose spread itself about. One man remembered the etory; another corroborated it; a third remembered that both men had strangely come together there. In the end a little company of them set out to find Adam Rook. They found him foeside the body of the man he had so relentlessly pursued, and whose life he had so frequently threatened ; and they only knew ( that the other man was dead. There had" been lawless murders about the place there recently, and this was one to make an example of. They gave him but small time for prayers or protestations.; they swore to 3iang him . then and there. . . On. his knees to them he begged and implored that they would have mercy. He cried that he had not done it ; he shrieked • that he had been cheated out of his vengeance. Contemptuously they pointed to the dead, and 1 bade hini get ready to follow his enemy. When they rode, away silently back 1 to

the camp the night, had fallen, and Adam Rook swung horribly from c. tree in the wind, his dead face turned towards the spot where was the newly-made grave of the -man he had designed to kill, ■i ■ '■ ■