"STAR" TALES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7728, 11 June 1903, Page 4

" STAR" TALES.

AN ORDER OF RELEASE. (Black and White.) Dr FoTbes lifted his head quickly and listened : someone was nearing the surgery door, and he had no inclination to be dis- j imbed just then. Moreover, it would not matter, soon, if he saw his patients, or attended to messages or not. " Who would have his practice?" he wondered. Then he walked over to the door and locked it : he wanted time— time to think it all out. When a man is very hard hit, though he j may smile, he is more dazed than a woman, less ready to look his coming death square- ■ ly in the face, and laugh at it. To be told that pulmonary phthisis has crept upon ' you, and that you must sit down and wait ; patiently for the slow conclusion of affairs • —it had sprung upon him rather suddenly, j this grim thing. l If— the eternal "if " — ; he had been more prepared for it, if he . had not climbed as highs as he had in his ; profession, he thought it would have been ; easier. Sitting forward in his stiff chair, \ one hand thrown upon, a pile of journals i on his desk, the other loosely clenched at : his side, he thought and thought, until j the May sunshine gave place- to a chill j gloom, and! his housekeeper knocked to inquire if he would not like a fire. The medical profession, like most others, . is overcrowded, and the youngster who enters it from motives of noble aspiration, J or is pitchforked into it by friends and the j drift of circumstances, generally regrets the ] fact so bitterly by the time his terms (and i his superfluous cash) are at an end, and for . weary weeks and months he has wait- ■ ed for the patients who do not j come, that . a post as chemist's assist- j ant, or speedy suicide seem the only alternatives to the bankruptcy court. Forbes recalled! this part of his short career with a grim laugh. His home ha 4 never given him luxuries, but there was always j e-nough to eat, and until he came up to the j city on a £550 exhibition, he did not know i how pitifully small i 3 tie measure of 12s 6d a week to house and feed one. But he "picked up the scraps," as tie student's phrase goes, and would take any analysis or micro, work that offered, and, having the gift of a quick eye and hand, would' sketcn and paint " interiors " during opera- j tionsj or the progress of skin diseases, until I he made a little name for himself in that j way. Hard-working, and cut off by pover- ! ty from most pleasure, at twenty he was j thrown entirely upon himself, his father j dying and leaving only an annuity for the widow. How he spent the years can be seen when B.c twenty-three he was already bouse-sur,-gebn in a large provincial hospital, and ab twenty-seven qualifying as a specialist in nervous diseases. It was not cleverness*— no one knew that better than Forbes himself; it was just that form of genius which; consists in " the infinite capacity for taking pains." He went into chambers at eight»ncUtwenty—rooms where all the other ocpipants were well-known, their glory being pi a measure' reflected on the young beginner. This last struggle had lasted some two years, and was slowly developing into a consulting practice ; them a cold acting on ail overwrought system resulted in pneumonia, from which, eager to be again at work, he recovered speedily. Thai mornIng, being his fifth day out, he had crawled into Grier's room at the hospital, telling himself that he was a hypochondriac, and stopping to hold himself together as he went through the corridors. Grier was the best- chest-disease man outside London; ho would tell him it was nothing serious. But there had been a long examination, and after it was over Forbes had gone back to his rooms to stare for hours at a picture above the mantelpiece which ihis eyes never saw, trying wearily to work out- the problem of what a man should do first, who has fifteenmonths to live— or less. In due time he learned the lesson of the . maimed ; self-preservation at any price for the life which before one has treated so carelessly, becomes, when one has " entered for finals," a thing" to clutch feverishly and cling to witih every nerve. And so the climate of Lancashire not being the best for the retarding of phthisis, and his surplus cash being nil, Forbes applied for the post of ship's doctor in an Eastward liner, a director of which had been his father's one friend. When he tad received (the appointment he iwent over to the Yorkshire village where his motlier lived in a tiny cottatre on an income still smaller, and said , good-Tjye. Ho could never live in England, and she was old and feeble, and they both knew it ; but. after the manner of women and 'mothers, she smiled at him through ' the mist of her tears, saying that he would ! come bakk quite strong from his first voyage. < And with fris kiss out the brave withered lips ended 'his old life of purpose, and) began the new one of aimless existence. The Msala, 6325 tons, outward-bound with passengers and cargo for China-, was already reported five days overdue, and friends of passengers were growing uneasy about, her. She was not a crack boat, in fact her owners had virtually decided to make this her last out and home voyage, i and convert her into a coaster. Friends of passengers and shippers of cargo would have been more-uneasy if they had seen the Msala, tying only 240 miles front port, her decks showing no more signs of life than if she had been a derelict. There are things worse to happen to a boat than wreck or even fire ; things of whichj. the bare memory makes a man shiver. This < thing had come'tp the Msala. A week ago Forbes, her doctor, had been called down to see a Lascar. One learns certain knowledge quickly out East. There were hurried plans for isolation and disinfection-, but those who had heard the dread peculiar vomiting; fled from their alley-way to all corners aft, carrying cholera .with them. The Lascar died, and was hauled over in the night, and Forbes shut off every man i>f the same hatch on thie upper deck aft, the passengers all going forward. With cholera Forbes might have wrestled successfully, 'hut on 'the second day a new symptom appeared, and plague — the deadly

plague begotten of Eastern dirt and indifference — began its reign. Sailors and firemen, without physique to endure, or grib to fight disease, -went down like flies, until death overcame discipline, and the Msala. lay, a floating hell, with no men to woik her engines, the blazing sky scorching her unwashed decks. "If I had not thought I should be of use, I should not have come. I lived in India for several years, and I am not afraid." , " Then I should be glad if you will take over those nine men on the poop to start with. You will probably find more work than you can manage soon," Forbes added grimly, as he looked down at the quiet little woman who, alone out of a. crowd of passengers, had come aft to help him in his fight against death. She did not know that this somewhat ungracious acceptance of her services was the greatest tribute to her pluck which Forbes could have paid. Eliot, the first officer, was the sole Englishman who came into contact with Forbes since the beginning of the terror, it being his duty to control, or attempt to control, the lower deck, and draft each victim aft. On the second day he had told Forbes that j " a girl from the second saloon, who was going out to the China mission field, wanted to come aft and help." Forbes had said shortly, "\Rot." When the chief again came aft, it was to help Miss Meredith, the "missionary |. girl," cany the first stricken passenger from j the saloon deck. • " This is Miss Meredith," he said to ! Forbes. " She will nurse Mrs Harrison." ! And so "Sister," as the men came to call j her, was installed as Forbes' assistant ; i things had become so grim now that the • Europeans were going down, that no one •' troubled to dispute her right there. • The nursing of the first English case was ; over in a few hours, but by that time two i more passengers had come aft. j It was the fifth day since the coming of j the plague— the third that the' engines had i been stopped for lack of hantte to run them. The first and second engineers had "gone aft" — the phrase which, generally meant rapid death and a speedier burial. By this time the shipping world had ascertained I the location of the Msala. A tramp had j been the first to sight her, but had fled on ! the dread signal of " plague aboard." When ! at length the quarantine boat sent out by , the port authorities reached her, the disease I had practically worked itself out, and the j passengers (less the four who had gone j under) merely had to submit to segregation, j The remnant of the crew were drafted ! forward until they, too, should be fitted foi j .quarantine. I "You will come aboard, of course?" said | the skipper of the port boat to Forbes. " One of our men will take your place here." I Forbes said nothing but gave a quick glance aft, where the woman who had stood by him all through, was sitting among the convalescent Lascars as calmly as though no quarantine boat- and comparative scomfort were in her vicinity. " You look as if you wanted a good Test," the skipper went on; "it will take you ! some time to pick up after this. Don't ' know how you stuck to it without getting bowled over." •Then the Doctor spoke. • " No, I shall Stay here until I can apply for a clean bill of health." The- other man looked at the thin face drawn by disease and the stress of these past days ; the 'hand . which rested on the rail was pitifully shrunken, and a ring he wore — the old signet his mother had 1 placed there when he went away — was loose on the little finger. Then the skipper took Forbes by the arm. "Come away, man," he said; "you've had all you can stand — stuck to your guns in away that even a 'healthy fellow " He paused abruptly. "To stay now will be I suicide, not duty,'* he finished, decisively. j Forbes glanced aft again, and faintly smiled— the smile of a ma-n -who is utterly worn out. "Perhaps so," he answered. "But I shall stay." . " " The gigantic conceit of the Western mind," ForSes was eaying to himself as he lay on deck two nights later. "I appropriate to myself this whole big business, and can look upon the plague as an order for my swifter release." The previous day tihere had! been a heavy hemorrhage, and the fragment of life which Temainedi was small. The quiet little woman, who seldom spoke, but could do anything and endure anything, was sitting within call. The ship was practically in health again, and when — when he would not want her any more, she would go into quarantine en route for her mission. But somehow the glory of her calling had been dimmed of late days. He called. for her in the night. "You have done — so much — for me. Will you — do a few things — after?" he asked 1 . She came a little nearer and; laid 'her hand on his, but did not speak. "I -want you to— keep— this ring, please

—and to send' — to my mother — to writer — and tell her all aboub it— and airaut yourself — i think she — would like — to write to you." A long pause to recover from the effect of gasping out the words, then : "I ih>ve — no other people; — or friends— or any — belonging* — except what are — in my cabin. Captain Venn will see* — to them. Can I — trouble— you— to burn the letters there?" She laid her other hand in his as he was speaking : they had gone through so much together, that there seemed small need! for words. The night grew hotter and hotter, and she drew aside the canvas which formed a tent around Forbes; the vivid moonlight showed th« sharp outline of his face, and the spots of blood which had fallen on- the pillows. He whispered dreamily to himself :• " It is better so— after all— to be released—than to struggle on." The woman who stood) by him looking out across the sea didi not think so. True, she was/eight-and-twenty, and as absolutely plain- amd ordinary as a> woman can be, and had drifted into the mission field, 'but she was a woman after all. She had her reward— small, perhaps, but large enough for a woman. The lamp of life flickered on until another night, and • before the mists of death clouded all memory he asked 1 for her. She knelt with him, alone, while the moon rose to the full, while the hot night cooled! into the chill 'Eastern dawn, and the Bta-rs diopped out of the sky, to give place , to fleecy little clouds of pink. When the sun came up from the sea in a, hot red blaze of lipht she crept down to feis cabin and shut the door.