A STORY OF LAND AND SEA 
 
 BY 
 
 COMMANDER J.D.J.KELLEY
 
 SCRIBNER'S POPULAR SERIES OF 
 
 COPYRIGHT NOVELS 
 
 WILLIAM WALDORF ASTOR . VALENTINO: AN Hisrr MCAL ROMANCE 
 
 ARLO BATES A WHEEL OF FIRE 
 
 H. H. BOYESEN FALCONBERG 
 
 MRS. BURNETT THAT LASS o' LOWRIE'S 
 
 " VAGABONDIA: A LOVE STORY 
 
 G. W. CABLE JOHN MARCH, SOUTHERNER 
 
 EDITH CARPENTER YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE 
 
 EDWARD EGGLESTON THE CIRCUIT RIDER 
 
 HAROLD FREDERIC THE LAWTON GIRL 
 
 ROBERT GRANT FACE TO FACE 
 
 MARION HARLAND . . JUDITH: A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA 
 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS . . FREE JOE AND OTHER SKETCHES 
 
 JULIAN HAWTHORNE A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 J. G. HOLLAND .... SEVENOAKS: A STORY OF TO-DAY 
 
 . . THE BAY PATH: A TALE OF COLONIAL LIFE 
 
 . ARTHUR BONNICASTLE: AN AMERICAN STORY 
 
 Miss GILBERT'S CAREER 
 
 " . NICHOLAS MINTURN 
 
 COM'R J. D. J. KELLEY ..... A DESPERATE CHANCE 
 
 G. P. LATHROP AN ECHO OF PASSION 
 
 JULIA MAGRUDER ACROSS THE CHASM 
 
 BRANDER MATTHEWS ..... THE LAST MEETING 
 
 DONALD G. MITCHELL DREAM LIFE 
 
 .... REVERIES OF A BACHELOR 
 
 HOWARD PYLE WITHIN THE CAPES 
 
 " Q " (A. T. QUILLER-COUCH) . . . THE SPLENDID SPUR 
 
 . THE DELECTABLE DUCHY 
 
 R. L. STEVENSON THE; EBB-TIDE 
 
 TREASURE ISLAND 
 
 THE WRONG Box 
 
 F. J. STIMSON " . . . GUERNDALE 
 
 FRANK R. STOCKTON RUDDER GRANGE 
 
 " . " ..... THE LADY OR THE TIGER
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE 
 
 A STOR Y OF LAND AND SEA 
 
 BY 
 
 J. D. JERROLD KELLEY 
 
 COMMANDER, U. S. N. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1899
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1886, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 MANHATTAN PRESS 
 
 474 W. BROADWAY 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 STACK 
 ANNEX 
 
 TO MY SON 
 
 MORRELL JERROLD KELLEY
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 DALTON'S JOURNAL, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 RUE ST. PIERRE, 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE COLONEL'S STORY, 37 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 ISABEL, 59 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 A QUEER LOT, 75 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 GIBRALTAR, 106 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 HALCYON AHOY! 125 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 HOMEWARD BOUND, 144
 
 v iii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 A DARK NIGHT, 167 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 STOUT HEARTS, 198 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 DAWN, 216 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 DAYLIGHT, 225
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FROM THE JOURNAL OF JOHN 
 
 BREWERTON DALTON, A 
 SURGEON IN THE UNITED 
 STATES NAVY. 
 
 FLAGSHIP COLUMBIA, 
 Off Toulon, France, $th March, 
 
 band of the Infanterie de Marine had 
 1 just finished the programme of the evening, 
 and the soldiers were removing the music stands 
 and portable lights from the Square, when I saw 
 coming toward me the woman who had been 
 watching us from a corner of the Place d'armes. 
 She moved irresolutely, and as the crowd swept 
 noisily into a narrow street, I lost sight of her 
 from my seat in front of the Restaurant Jean 
 Bart, where I had been dining with Hippolyte 
 Delmonte, the senior medical officer of the con- 
 vict station. 
 
 I thought no more of her ; after this, as my 
 
 z
 
 2 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 mind was already disturbed by an incident which 
 had interrupted our dinner. For some days 
 Delmonte and I had been deeply interested in a 
 convict who was the only Englishman then under- 
 going punishment, and as we were taking our 
 coffee, news had come of his attempted suicide. 
 The man had been sent to the hospital soon after 
 his arrival in Toulon, and from the beginning had, 
 under adverse circumstances, displayed so many 
 unexpected qualities, that the interest and sym- 
 pathy of the physicians were excited in his 
 favor. I had spoken to him several times offer- 
 ing such services as the rules permitted, but 
 he had always answered quietly, never com- 
 plaining of his misery nor making any requests, 
 until my last visit when he said : 
 
 "Thank you, Doctor Dalton, there is one 
 favor which I can ask, because, though a convict, 
 I am not, in the higher sense, nor morally, a 
 criminal. It is this. Should I die in this rat 
 hole, try and bury me where God's free air may 
 come, and let some tender English prayer be said 
 in memory of what I have been." 
 
 He was so much a mystery to both of us, 
 that we were again discussing the probable his- 
 tory of 2008 such was his prison individuality 
 when an orderly approached hurriedly and gave 
 Delmonte a note.
 
 DALTOWS JOURNAL. 3 
 
 He opened it leisurely, but in a moment his 
 face filled with sorrow, and he said : 
 
 "Hein, Dalton! our mystery will be unsolved 
 forever, if not revealed within an hour. Your 
 countryman is dying." 
 
 " My countryman ? " I asked, with a nervous 
 premonition of some unknown evil. 
 
 "Yes! Our Englishman, 2008, proves to be 
 an American ; he has taken poison, procured no 
 one knows how, and of such potency that he can- 
 not live ; at least so says the assistant who writes 
 this I must leave you." 
 
 " Can I be of service ? " I asked. 
 
 "Perhaps." Then he added, "At what time 
 do you go on board ship ? " 
 
 " In the eleven o'clock boat, which leaves the 
 inner landing by the police ship." 
 
 "And until that hour ? " he inquired. 
 
 " I shall stay here and finish my cigar." 
 
 "Well, if I need you, I shall send here or to 
 the landing stage. Is your aumonier how do 
 you call him your chaplain is he ashore ?" 
 
 " Yes ; he came with me, before sundown." 
 
 " Can he be found at this hour? for the dying 
 man may need him. A poor ending this, for any 
 one, Dalton, but doubly sad for such as our con- 
 vict, as I am sure, he was a gentleman." 
 
 Delmonte walked quickly under the trees
 
 4 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 towards the avenue leading to the Arsenal Gate, 
 but in the shadow, where the street makes a half 
 turn by the walls of the Prefet's garden, the 
 woman I had noticed before, stopped him with a 
 nervous entreaty. He bowed courteously, made 
 some reply to her questioning and, calling a 
 passing quarter-master of the fleet, pointed me 
 out ; then, with another salute, he hurried upon 
 his errand of mercy. 
 
 The woman hesitated, drawing back into the 
 shadow of the trees, and I lost sight of her in 
 the crowd which followed the band and its escort. 
 
 A quiet place is the Place d'armes at night, 
 when the music is finished, and now it was almost 
 deserted save by a few loungers like myself, and 
 by the sentries whose muskets gleamed in the 
 gaslight, and whose measured tread awoke dis- 
 turbing echoes on the pavement in front of the 
 official residence. Clouds were gathering over- 
 head, and the southerly breeze sighed in the top- 
 most branches of the poplars. 
 
 "Time to be going," I thought, looking at 
 my watch, and feeling the loneliness of the place ; 
 "and yet I should like to know how that poor 
 fellow makes his struggle for life. Dead, per- 
 haps, and in such a place. Heaven pity him ! " 
 
 The half hour struck faintly from a distant 
 clock ; a great bell tolled solemnly ; there was a
 
 DAL TON'S JO URNAL. 5 
 
 bugle-call from somewhere, strange too, at that 
 hour; and, in the heart of the town, dogs were 
 baying; from the harbor came the quick ringing 
 of five bells on the men-of-war, and the hails of 
 the watchful sentries punctuated the night with a 
 sudden, sharp distinctness which made oppres- 
 sive the silence that followed. 
 
 I tossed off the last of the demi-tasse, puffed 
 my cigar into a friendly blaze, and arose to go, 
 when I again saw the woman stealing out of the 
 gloom. She seemed afraid to leave a shadow on 
 the pavement or to awake an echo that might 
 reveal her hiding-place ; for she walked, not in 
 the open pathway, but cat-like in the dusk of 
 the angles ; at last reaching the one nearest to 
 me, she halted, cut off by its screen from the 
 flooding light of the cafe. 
 
 It was the woman I had seen before and lost, 
 and who was now, as if by a determined effort, 
 about to address me. I saluted her courteously, 
 placed a chair where the shadow of a tree would 
 in some degree hide her from the passers-by, and 
 awaited her pleasure. 
 
 In a low, quick voice, that was hard and 
 metallic with suppressed emotion, and in perfect 
 English, she said, 
 
 " Pardon me, Dr. Dalton? " 
 
 "At your service, Madame," I replied. For a
 
 6 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 second I had hesitated over this last word, but I 
 saw she was not in that debatable land where 
 the term may be offensive or most proper, as cir- 
 cumstances demand. 
 
 "Surgeon in the American Navy, and of the 
 Frigate Columbia ? " she asked me, quickly. 
 
 " I am Dr. Dalton, a surgeon in the navy, and 
 attached to the ship you have named." 
 
 " Pardon me again. But " and here she paused 
 for a moment as if to be certain of her phrase 
 " I doubted the correctness of my information, as 
 you are not like these others, these French 
 you are not in uniform." 
 
 " Dr. Delmonte informed you ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Dr. Delmonte?" she repeated. "Ah, yes! The 
 officer in naval uniform who left your table, and 
 who is, so I am informed, the physician of the Prison 
 Hospital. The Bagne, I believe it is called." 
 
 " Dr. Delmonte," I answered, " is chief-of-staff 
 of the Bagne." 
 
 She drew her chair out of the shadow, and 
 after a moment of hesitation, but in the same 
 low voice which betrayed little of the misery that 
 must have been crushing her, said : 
 
 " Oh, sir ! I am your countrywoman and friend- 
 less. Can you not aid me ? I arrived but an 
 hour since, and must go at once to the Hos- 
 pital of the Convict Station."
 
 DAL TON'S JO URNAL. j 
 
 So, she had come from the north, as the 
 southern trains are earlier and later. Evidently 
 no gamester this, stranded on the reefs of Monte 
 Carlo. I waited, as she watched me with burning 
 eyes, and replied, quietly, 
 
 " What you ask is, I regret to say, impossible." 
 
 " Impossible ? Oh, do not say that ! " she 
 interrupted, with eager and pitiful entreaty. 
 
 "At this hour," I added, " all the gates are, by 
 regulations, closed, and the code of the adminis- 
 tration is most rigid." 
 
 " But," she pleaded, " mercy will relax that 
 code, pity will soften that administration. Your 
 companion, Dr. Delmonte, said the same. I told 
 him of my necessity, but in vain. Then I begged 
 as a helpless foreigner, an American and here 
 he interrupted me and declared that a matter of 
 life and death depended upon his haste. He gave 
 me your name and station, and pointed you out 
 as one who would inform me what his necessities 
 forbade. Will you not help me ? " she entreated, 
 tearfully ; " I appeal to you as a friendless woman 
 to a gentleman, as a countrywoman alone in a 
 strange land to her countryman, as a sufferer to 
 a physician." 
 
 She paused, overmastered by emotion, and 
 then continued : " I must go to the hospital, and, 
 all else failing, by your aid."
 
 g A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 What could I do ? Though pitying her from 
 my heart, I knew what she asked was impos- 
 sible. I said to her : 
 
 " I am, in this matter, powerless. You would 
 have more right to ask the privilege than I, for 
 my official position forbids. To enter the Dock 
 Yard, a pass from the Commandant is required, 
 and the office of the Rear-Admiral has been 
 closed for many hours. I regret this deeply, but 
 it is a charity to tell you. Forgive my frankness 
 and cruelty, but I must repeat, what you ask is 
 impossible." 
 
 " God help and pity me, then ! " she cried, and 
 with a low moan like that of a hunted animal, 
 stricken to death in a tangle of brush, she sank 
 helpless upon the chair. 
 
 There was the half-caught strain of a jolly 
 song from a distant Brasserie, echoed by a chorus 
 I had heard in the Alcazar, when the house rose 
 to the witcheries of the latest Parisian success ; 
 from the cafe behind me, bubbled the riotous 
 laughter of the domino-players, and at the 
 instant, a woman went by, swaying unsteadily on 
 the arm of a tipsy soldier, who made a silly joke 
 upon the environment. 
 
 I fancied I could hear the rising tide lapping 
 the prison walls, and the echoes of the breezes 
 challenging, in their idle liberty, the men who
 
 DAL TON'S JO URNAL. g 
 
 tossed in dreamful slumber on board the galley 
 hulks which darkened the inner harbor. At 
 that time, too, the sentry at the Prefecture came 
 to a salute, and I saw the gallant old Contre- 
 Amiral climbing the steps of the grim house 
 which represented the might of law and govern- 
 ment. 
 
 I lifted the woman's head, called to the waiter 
 for a carafe of brandy, and dashing it with a 
 midshipman's allowance of water, forced the 
 draught between her lips. 
 
 She revived slowly, and as if in pain. "A 
 stern, determined woman, this," I thought, as I 
 looked at the straight brow, the clearly defined 
 angles of the jaws, and the thin lips, revealing 
 teeth, which set closely above a sharply chiselled 
 chin. "A woman to suffer, and in silence; to 
 work in the shadow, and to wait, and, at the end, 
 to grasp success only as a step to some forede- 
 termined victory which the world would mark as 
 hopeless. A woman potent for great good, or 
 greater evil, an individuality which no opposition 
 could defashion of its angles and elemental lines." 
 
 She sipped the spirits, and looking at the 
 clouded sky with eyes which gleamed above the 
 hollows of her pale cheeks, demanded in a voice 
 weak with emotion,
 
 I0 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 " Pardon my persistence ; tell me, where does 
 this Commandant live ? " 
 
 " In the Arsenal, and at this hour you can see 
 him only by appointment, certified by pass or 
 countersign." 
 
 " Who can give this pass, this countersign ? " 
 
 " I cannot answer. In my night visits, I have 
 been always accompanied by an officer." 
 
 " Who, then, is the senior officer ? Is there a 
 political, a naval, a military superior, whose 
 authority is paramount ? " 
 
 "Always," I answered, with some lightness in 
 my tone. " Yes, the Prefet his word is law." 
 
 This seemed to eliminate one factor from the 
 problem with which she had been struggling, for 
 she rose, exultant, transfigured by a new hope, 
 and cried, joyously, 
 
 " Come, let us go to him." 
 
 In this woman's hands I was helpless, and I 
 found myself reasoning, that the Prefet, though 
 a power in the land, was not the Grand Llama, 
 nor yet the awful Mikado ; so I replied : 
 
 " He lives opposite, where you see the sentry, 
 and has at this moment returned. As you 
 have asked me, I shall go with you ; but how 
 will you explain this desire to enter the hos- 
 pital ? " 
 
 " Come, come," she insisted, nervously ; " let
 
 DAL TON'S JO URNAL. 1 1 
 
 us go. My need is great, and I can tell all 
 when I see this Mayor this Governor is it ? " 
 
 " Prefet." 
 
 "Thank you, this Prefet. At present," she 
 continued, " we must not hesitate. I have lost 
 too much time already in addressing you, but I 
 feared the crowded square, the people here and 
 around the tables I feared your generous 
 dinner." 
 
 We crossed the dingy old Place, and as I was 
 answering the hail of the sentry, I heard the 
 man who had waited at dinner calling loudly. 
 He ran to me and delivered a note just left by a 
 messenger. It was addressed in the quaint, 
 Gallican scrawl of Delmonte, and I read this : 
 
 " MY DEAR DALTON : The American is dying and there is 
 no hope. He has asked to see you. Can you come at once ? 
 Enclosed is a pass for two, in case the ship's priest should be 
 with you." 
 
 I struck out my line of action at once. I 
 knew the chaplain was ashore, philandering the- 
 ologically with some religious American stopping 
 at the Croix d'Or, en route to Barcelona, so I sent 
 him a line to await further instructions at the 
 Arsenal Gate. 
 
 Turning down the narrow street in the rear 
 of the Prefecture, the woman following, I said :
 
 12 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 " At the risk of violating a sacred confidence, 
 I can take you to the hospital, but I cannot 
 promise you will accomplish anything." 
 
 " I shall not fail, if you will take me there," 
 she replied, in a tone out of which all entreaty 
 had now passed. 
 
 " I rely upon your discretion," I continued ; 
 " and I hope your necessity, of which I ask no 
 explanation, justifies you placing me in this 
 position." 
 
 She bowed her head, declined the arm I felt 
 bound to offer, threw a heavy veil over her face, 
 and, without further words, we walked down the 
 quiet street to the Dock Yard. 
 
 We passed the challenging sentries, accom- 
 panied by the Sergeant of the Guard, who met 
 us where we were first halted, and going through 
 the Arsenal Gate, after the moment's delay which 
 the viseing of our passes demanded, turned hur- 
 riedly toward the avenue, whereon the hospital 
 is situated. 
 
 I marked how noiselessly the woman walked, 
 and, as if unconsciously, how she sought always 
 the shadow of the walls and workshops. An 
 unvexed quiet lay upon the place, save for my 
 footsteps ringing loudly upon the pavement, and 
 evoking echoes which followed and went before. 
 There was a sense of space about us, measure-
 
 DAL TON'S JO URNAL. 1 3 
 
 less, seemingly, as the skies, and as with eager 
 feet the woman gave the pace which led me, we 
 seemed to be isolated in a deserted land. In the 
 many turnings where buildings uprose with sud- 
 den unexpectedness, uncanny spirits seemed to 
 be lurking; and when, after a time, we drew 
 into a wider common, where lights were rare 
 and the pavement ended, my strange companion 
 repelled me as if she were a thing of evil luring 
 to certain woe. She walked with a steadfast 
 purpose and in silence, looking neither to the 
 right nor left, and, as if by intuition, always 
 toward the shining lights of the hospital. When 
 these grew clear, she raised her head, and, as 
 her hands clasped and unclasped each other ner- 
 vously, she appeared to be preparing for some 
 supreme effort. 
 
 We were admitted to the ante-room, and I 
 asked her to wait until I had made my explana- 
 tions. Learning that Delmonte was in the ward 
 above, I mounted the stairs quietly, and, opening 
 a swinging door, entered the long, white room. 
 A sad place at anytime is this refuge of the sick, 
 but at night it is ghostly and drear in the sub- 
 dued hush and light, though ever and always the 
 only haven of rest, where the convicts find in ill- 
 ness, or in death, a relief from the misery of 
 their hopeless lives.
 
 !4 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 In a far corner of the room, where a shaded 
 lamp burned dimly, knelt a priest, bending his 
 white head to the lips of a dying man, and listen- 
 ing to that awful recital of repentant guilt, which 
 must be doubly filled with human wickedness 
 when its outcome is in such a place and from 
 such a penitent. Nearer the door a nun was 
 soothing the fevered cheeks of an Algerian con- 
 vict, who murmured in his restless slumber odd 
 bits of the Koran queer sentences of hope and 
 fear and trust which had slumbered in his desert- 
 steeped soul, as the half-remembered memories 
 of old home songs sleep till heard alone in for- 
 eign lands. But under the outstretched arms of 
 an ivory crucifix in the transept, where the moon- 
 light, streaming through an unshaded window, 
 rested on the crown of the bowed head of the 
 Master, was a bed around which a few silent 
 people were watching the man I had come to see. 
 
 2008 ! What more did we know of him 
 whose name in childhood had run the rosary of 
 a mother's prayers ! what more of him who had 
 been a father's hope and tender care ! Convict 
 and felon, here he was lying, wan, pallid, and 
 breathing away the last of an ill-spent and a 
 self-immolated life ; the fair face which the South- 
 ern sun had tanned with unpitying beams, looked 
 more homelike in its pallor than ever before;
 
 DAL TON'S JO URNAL. l $ 
 
 and in the deep brown eyes turned so hope- 
 lessly to mine was a likeness to other eyes I loved 
 in that dear Western land of ours. 
 
 Delmonte drew me aside and said, " Nothing 
 can be done ; he may die at any moment. Is 
 your chaplain here?" 
 
 With some shame, I explained the liberty I 
 had taken with his official permission, and gave 
 my reasons. After a minute's reflection, his face 
 brightened and he said, 
 
 " It is a violation of the rules, without doubt ; 
 but humanity must not be crushed by the wheels 
 of discipline. I will assume the responsibility and 
 will send to the Gate for the Chaplain, who 
 should by this time have received your note." 
 When I had thanked him for his consideration, 
 he asked, 
 
 " The lady is below ? Good ! I will talk to 
 her. Graviere, my assistant, is here, you know 
 him ? " As he turned to go where the stricken 
 woman was awaiting, he added, " Ah, Dalton, a 
 sad, sad affair this ! " 
 
 The dying man soon recognized me, for after 
 looking in the steadfast manner which character- 
 izes the sick, he muttered, feebly, 
 
 " Nearly over, doctor, thank God nearly over. 
 Life has been so hard with me." In a little 
 while he whispered,
 
 1 6 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 " Give me your hand." 
 
 I reached my frand out to him and to his mis- 
 ery, and, bending down, asked him to make his 
 peace with God. 
 
 " Do you believe God will forgive such as I 
 am and have been," he said, in trembling tones, 
 but not with despair; for, almost immediately, 
 he added, "Ah, yes; I think so. My life has 
 been so sad, and so weary, that He, knowing all, 
 will forgive me." 
 
 The feeble hand slipped from mine and the 
 fading eyes turned to where the image of the 
 crucified Saviour, the ever-present symbol of these 
 prayerful ones of another faith, looked down from 
 its soft nimbus of shimmering moonlight 
 
 "He knows," the convict murmured, "He 
 knows ; " and the blanched lips trembled with a 
 scarcely perceptible motion of prayer; his fingers 
 played nervously upon the coverlid and then 
 followed spasms, which became less recurrent 
 and less violent as the poisoned life blood yielded 
 to the power of the drug. But in every quiet 
 interval he clasped my hand, and clinging with 
 his soul to our land over the waste of waters, he 
 uttered only one word " Home." 
 
 Our chaplain entered, and the rest withdrew 
 to a little distance, while the words of consolation 
 taught and made sacred by the minister's holy
 
 DAL TON'S JO URNAL. l j 
 
 office, were said. The noise of this entrance, 
 subdued though it was, awoke the Arab, who 
 glared at us with a scornful smile upon his lips ; 
 but as the lurid eyes of the criminal from the 
 land of the Kabyle turned to the nun, who was 
 kneeling at the bedside of the American, their 
 wickedness died, and into their depths a tender- 
 ness crept, as the rift of blue sky blesses the 
 brooding waters where the lightning and the 
 storm have fretted. 
 
 The priest came nearer and fell upon his 
 knees ; and over all was the hush of the middle 
 night, the awful quiet when God is nearest, and 
 the future trembles on the shores of the present, 
 as the dawn dreams upon the breast of the night. 
 The ticking of a clock made each second seem a 
 minute, and save for this the silence was broken 
 only by the slowly dropping beads of the nun's 
 rosary and by the breathings of the dying man, 
 which rose and fell, as if with amens, to the 
 prayers she was making for him and forever. 
 
 An awful quiet. No one moved, and in the 
 hush it seemed as if the world was waiting what 
 would so surely be. Then came the indistinct 
 monotone of a sergeant repeating his night 
 orders to the relief, and when this was stilled, the 
 cadence of the marching men receded and was 
 lost, as echoes die amid the hills.
 
 jg A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 The quiet of immortality and of peace for 
 death was here. 
 
 Suddenly a pallid face looked through the 
 doorway, an eerie, unearthly cry broke upon the 
 night, and the woman I had met in the Toulon 
 streets dashed through the portals and cried, 
 
 "Oh, my love, my Philip, my love, live for 
 me!" 
 
 With outstretched arms and yearning eyes, 
 she halted by the doorway, while the face of the 
 dying man flushed as a sunset sea with the tide 
 of ebbing life, and then, with a last effort slowly 
 sought this ghost of his past, uprisen now. 
 
 "Home!" he murmured. "Home! God knows 
 best and all." 
 
 His hands were lifted in trembling supplica- 
 tion, but not to her; and, with a smile of hope 
 transfiguring his weary face, he turned to the 
 crucifix on the wall, and thus turning, passed 
 away. 
 
 For a time no one spoke. We stared affright- 
 edly and unnerved at this ending; all but the 
 sweet sister, whose face rested with infinite love 
 upon the image of the dead Christ, looking 
 down from His symbol of atonement, upon the 
 man He had died to save. 
 
 The woman groped her way to the bedside, 
 and in the mad incoherency of grief, poured out
 
 DAL TON'S JO URNAL. l g 
 
 a confession of such hopeless, unbounded love, 
 mingled with such threats of revenge upon the 
 unnamed maker of this wreck, that I, who alone 
 understood her, pray heaven I may never hear 
 its like again. 
 
 Quietly, and with the benediction of a life's 
 sacrifice upon her, the nun came to her suffering 
 woman, and said, 
 
 " My sister, God is good. He died for such 
 as this is, for such as we are. Pray to Him." 
 
 We left them there, Delmonte and I, and with 
 the silvered glory gone from the thorn-encircled 
 brow of the Master ; and, as we passed out, we 
 saw them, in the great common humanity of 
 prayer and divine dependence, kneeling there, 
 minister and priest, suffering woman and pale 
 sweet nun, all bowed beneath the mystery aglow 
 in the crowning aureola of the descending spring 
 moonlight. 
 
 March 6th. 
 
 This morning we buried the American, as 
 we have learned to call him, and as he asked, 
 beyond the prison walls, and with the prayers 
 of the English Church. Will his story remain 
 untold forever, until the fullness of that time 
 when all things are made clear who can tell ? 
 
 The name given in the criminal records is
 
 2O A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 fictitious, and his crime a robbery from the 
 person, accompanied by felonious assault ex- 
 cludes any but the most prosaic solution. 
 
 All the members of the mess who could be 
 spared from duty, followed the modest funeral 
 in citizen's dress. As the first earth fell with 
 its unnerving thud upon the coffin, a woman 
 clad in deepest black, and so closely veiled as 
 to be unrecognizable, stood by the grave, and 
 said, as she threw three roses into it: "This for 
 love, this for hate, and this for remembrance." 
 
 When the grave was filled, she walked out of 
 the quiet cemetery, went down the white road 
 blazing in the sunshine, where neither flowers of 
 spring nor grasses told of the immortality of 
 hope, and so onward into the crowded street 
 and out of our lives forever. Out of our lives, 
 I say, for the Sergeant de Ville, who followed, 
 learned that her destination was Paris, the great 
 city to the northward, which swallows yearly 
 hundreds such as she. 
 
 Shall I ever see her again ? And whom and 
 what can such a Nemesis be pursuing? A 
 woman of iron, this, I should say, with her heart 
 so pecked at by the daws of fate, that she has 
 learned to suffer and to wait, and through travail 
 and pain to gain her end, be it good or evil, 
 which follows.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 RUE ST. PIERRE. 
 
 UPON the morning of the I4th of April, 
 1879, Paris found itself, after a season of 
 chilling rain, blessed by the brightness of a day 
 which cheered as one of June. So sweet and 
 gracious was this, that it gave a fictitious glamor 
 to the grimy and shabby penitent which the city 
 so often is in the pitiless truths of morning. 
 The uncertain month had been cold and cheer- 
 less. Ceaseless downpours of soft rain, days of 
 grey mist, and nights of yellow fog had made 
 holy week appeal doubly to the frightened world- 
 ling; and Easter, haplessly, had known no star 
 nor sun to make it the jocund day which poets 
 sing. It was the season of daffodil and of tulip, 
 though as yet no primroses shivered in the Bois ; 
 nor in the gardens of the Tuilleries did the early 
 budding chestnuts bless with companionship the 
 crocuses which wept a welcome to spring. 
 
 So, in this glorious morning the early awaken- 
 ing Parisians enjoyed, as a dower long withheld,
 
 22 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 the glad pipings of strange birds, the unflecked 
 blue of the heavens, the flooding gold of the 
 sunbeams, the soft breath of wandering country 
 breezes, and the unvexed peace which dozed in 
 the angles not yet invaded by the sunlight. 
 
 The quiet of early morning enfolded the city. 
 From the Boulevard there came no lip-lipping 
 of the tide which later floods and overflows, with- 
 out ebb or lessening current, until the middle 
 watches of the night are gone ; and from the 
 secluded and noisome districts these broad 
 avenues surround, there rose no murmur of 
 the labor, that, by and by, will rage impotently 
 at the walls which bann the seas of liberty be- 
 yond. 
 
 Carriages hurrying from the Barriere Balls with 
 the latest of their wretched dancers, flew shame- 
 facedly up the streets; lumbering country wag- 
 ons, driven by dozing rustics rumbled slowly and 
 sullenly toward the city's walls ; and when the 
 day grew, faint as lace in the blue of the sky, the 
 smoke from forge and factory trailed southward 
 before the freshening breeze. Yawning shop- 
 men opening the iron-barred doors, drew in long 
 draughts of energy, and chatted noisily of the 
 sad pleasures which made the sunlight of their 
 little lives; and from Saint ^.ntoine, workmen 
 crawled westward, drowsy and bitter at first, but
 
 RUE ST. PIERRE. 2 $ 
 
 in the end loud with laughter, as the elixir of the 
 light and breeze coursed in their sluggish veins. 
 
 As they went to their labor the Sergeant de 
 Ville watched searchingly from the light of the 
 broad roadway these earliest tide-rips of the flood 
 which later overflows in labor's restless sea ; and 
 when they swept out of the Boulevard into a 
 narrow street, which bore them to the shores of 
 their daily tale of bricks and straw, he followed 
 slowly, and met at its further end, coming east- 
 ward, a group of police officials. 
 
 A calm, modest street was this Rue St. Pierre, 
 during many hours of a day which elsewhere 
 were loud and braggart. Though not a forgot- 
 ten pathway, either, wherein grasses lifted, fear- 
 fully, pale-green blades between the crevices of 
 its paving ; for it had its busy hours, and at the 
 high noon of trade and barter, echoed with the 
 strife of buyer and seller. But when these were 
 gone, it rested peacefully and almost unsought, 
 save by those who lived in the tall and gloomy 
 houses which lined its pavement and shoved a 
 wilderness of chimneys into the sky. 
 
 Here and there in the dingy row were a few 
 better and newer buildings, and of these, No. 
 26, standing almost in the middle of the line, 
 was perhaps the best and newest After a mo- 
 ment of consultation the officials halted at this
 
 24 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 house, and then one of them pulled the bell with 
 such a potent absolutism of authority in his sum- 
 mons, that, as if by magic, the door was thrown 
 widely open, and the concierge appeared. 
 
 Of the three officials who entered the senior 
 was a Juge d' instruction, and the others were the 
 Commissaire of Police of the Quarter and the 
 Judge's clerk. 
 
 " The occupants of this house, who are they ? " 
 was the first question put to the startled woman. 
 She enumerated these stumblingly, presented her 
 written list and, with a shrill persistency, sub- 
 mitted, in proof of her truthfulness, a package 
 of recommendations. The Commissaire care- 
 fully verified the first document, and then bowed 
 to xhe Judge, who said, 
 
 " Your list is correct. The fourth floor is 
 occupied by a Madame Marion Darlington, an 
 American, a widow, a traveler. So ! When did 
 you see her last?" 
 
 "An American ? " replied the concierge, doubt- 
 fully. " I do not know that, as they are all Eng- 
 lish to us, except in their generosity and courtesy. 
 But I have not seen Madame Darlington," and 
 here she stopped to think and count her fin- 
 gers, " not for eleven days." 
 
 " Her apartments ? " 
 
 " Have not been occupied since she left
 
 RUE ST. PIERRE. 2 $ 
 
 They are locked, and by her request have been 
 unopened; and here" reaching to the rack 
 " here is the key." 
 
 " Describe her appearance." 
 
 " She was a lady, I should say ; true, a poor 
 one, but a lady, undoubtedly. Tall, thin, and 
 not in good health; her eyes and hair were 
 black ; her face was pale and sorrowful, and usu- 
 ally she was very quiet though I have heard 
 her walking up and down, up and down, some- 
 times for half the night; so much, truly, that 
 the lodger below complained ; and I have heard 
 her sobbing, often in the early morning. She 
 spoke but a few times to us, and, so far as we 
 knew, was without friends." 
 
 Delighted to find such patient listeners the 
 concierge rattled away like a fusilade on a picket 
 line, unmindful of her shabby husband, who 
 stood in a dark corner vainly making signals 
 of caution. Finally she said, 
 
 " Madame Darlington arrived three months 
 ago, and during that time no one has called 
 upon her." 
 
 " When did you last see her, I mean at what 
 time of the day ?" demanded the Judge. 
 
 " Upon the evening of the 3d of April she 
 came down the stairs, slowly, as if in pain, said 
 she was going to the country for a few days, and
 
 2 6 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 promised if detained beyond two weeks to write. 
 Then she gave me, in coin, the month's advance 
 rent for the agent." 
 
 " Describe her dress." 
 
 " Usually it was dark, though when I saw her 
 last she wore a long cloak. I remember this, 
 as it was the birthday of my grandson. Her 
 sorrowful face frightened the boy, and he ran to 
 me, crying. ' It is always so/ she said, with a 
 sad smile, 'children never love me, and I, ah! 
 how I could love them ! ' Then she called the 
 little one and gave him a franc for his fete. As 
 she passed out of the door, I saw that her dress 
 was dark, and that about her she had a wrap a 
 cloak." 
 
 " Like this ? " inquired the Commissaire ; and 
 the clerk, unfastening the bundle which he car- 
 ried, showed an English cloak, soiled and stained, 
 but not much worn. 
 
 The concierge examined this carefully, and 
 answered, "That of Madame Darlington was 
 new; this looks older, but the pattern is the 
 same. I marked it closely, as I would like to 
 have such a one for my daughter, who is poor 
 and sometimes cold. Ah, yes ! she exclaimed, 
 looking closer, see, here are two letters, M. D." 
 
 She pointed out the initials curiously stitched 
 in a corner, which no one but a woman could
 
 RUE ST. PIERRE. 2 / 
 
 have found. The officers looked at each other 
 with a scarcely expressed sign of assent, and the 
 Judge said, 
 
 " We will now go to her apartment." 
 By this time the husband of the concierge 
 had joined them, and from the partly-opened 
 doorway of the bedroom the little grandson 
 peered half inquiringly, half affrightedly, at the 
 unusual scene. Climbing the stairs to the fourth 
 story, the apartment was reached, and the door 
 being unlocked, it was found to be an unpreten- 
 tious flat of five rooms. The front faced the 
 quiet street, the rear looked upon a mouldy 
 court-yard, flanked by a dressmaker's workshop, 
 wherein a dozen lazy girls were regretting the 
 hard fortune which sent them so early to work 
 on a day blessed by the breeze and sunshine. 
 The sitting-room was dark and had a musty 
 odor; its curtains were drawn and the blinds 
 were closed, though through chinks here and 
 there, where the wood had warped, crept rays 
 of sunlight, which in places were broken into 
 prismatic beams that gave color to the dancing 
 motes. 
 
 There was but little furniture, and apparently 
 none of those femininities which by a bit of 
 color, or a touch of grace would have saved the 
 surroundings from utter dreariness. Upon the
 
 2 8 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 walls were a few cheap lithographs, so badly 
 hung that in their crudity and high position 
 there was an equal fitness which bespoke a hard, 
 untrained life. A porcelain stove standing in 
 one corner was choked with the smooth and 
 oily convolutions of a charred manuscript, which, 
 though frail and crumbling, was not altogether 
 beaten into feathery ashes. On the table lay a 
 thick hastily sealed letter, and in the socket of a 
 flat holder a candle had sputtered and gutted 
 with an overflow which had filled the cracks of 
 polished wood. 
 
 The clerk threw open the windows, and as 
 the light and air entered, he saw in a cage 
 upon the floor the ruffled feathers and filmy, half- 
 closed eyes of a dead canary bird. Scattered 
 about were the seed and sand ; and on the wires 
 the indentations of sharp teeth and a few fluffy- 
 hairs showed where a cat had tried with despera- 
 tion to kill the bird. Over head was the string 
 which had held the cage, and as the bird was 
 taken out by the clerk, he saw that the wings 
 were broken, as if it had beaten out its life 
 against the wires. Surely enough, in a dingy 
 closet off the kitchen, glared the fiery eyes of an 
 enormous cat, fierce with hunger and wild with 
 fear. As the clerk flung back the blinds the cat 
 hissed angrily, and then with a bound, leaped
 
 RUE ST. PIERRE. 
 
 2 9 
 
 through the casement toward a neighboring 
 roof, tottered and fell into the dreary area. 
 
 This was all, though pitiable enough, as evi- 
 dences of the sudden impulse which had aban- 
 doned to such horrors, the bird with the heavens 
 for the marge of its freeways, and the cat, which 
 need be a homeless wanderer nowhere. As the 
 clerk lifted the cage, the curly-headed grandson 
 of the concierge, who had followed them labori- 
 ously up the tiresome stairway, opened it, and 
 stealing to his grandmother's side, sat during the 
 examination, with the dead bird pressed against 
 his warm soft cheek. 
 
 A thorough search showed that the gowns 
 and linen in the armoire and chiffoniere were 
 undisturbed ; and, as the concierge pointed out, 
 that little was altered in the general appearance 
 of the room. The manuscript upon the table 
 was enclosed in a soiled envelope, and was 
 addressed to Colonel Clifford Bentley, in care of 
 the American Legation. 
 
 The officials seated themselves at the table, 
 and after the usual formal questions had been 
 recorded, elicited these facts : 
 
 Mrs. Darlington appeared to have no friends in 
 Paris ; she was rarely absent from home at night, 
 took long walks by day, and read and wrote 
 constantly. At first few letters came for her,
 
 3Q A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 though she appeared always to be expecting them 
 with a nervous anxiety; finally even these failed, 
 and every day she became paler and quieter, 
 never ill, but evidently suffering from great men- 
 tal distress. What, no one could tell, for she 
 neither invited questioning nor assistance. 
 
 Five weeks before, on the evening of the 4th 
 of March, the concierge brought her a letter, and 
 early the next morning she was driven to the 
 station for Lyons. Three days afterward she 
 returned and since then, until the evening of the 
 3d, had rarely ventured out, her food being sup- 
 plied from a restaurant in the nearest Boulevard. 
 
 At this point a step was heard on the stairs, 
 and as the examiners looked inquiringly, Girard, 
 a detective of the Main Establishment of the 
 Surete entered, saluted the others courteously 
 and drew a chair to the open window. 
 
 When the examination was concluded, the 
 Judge said, addressing himself to the Agent, " An 
 ordinary suicide, M. Girard, which appears to 
 have been the result of a sudden impulse. You 
 know the story. Eleven days since a scream 
 was heard upon the Pont d'Austerlitz, followed 
 almost immediately by a splash in the water and 
 a cry for help. When Robin, the Sergeant de 
 Ville, who was on duty at that time in the Quai 
 de la Rapee, reached the bridge, all was quiet ;
 
 RUE ST. PIERRE. 3 1 
 
 near the middle pier he found a cloak, which has 
 been identified as belonging to the person who 
 lived in these rooms. Yesterday evening a 
 corpse, drifting in the tide-way past Suresnes, 
 was brought to the Morgue ; when searched 
 nothing was discovered, by which it could be 
 identified, except a handkerchief with the name 
 of Marion Darlington. An inquiry showed that 
 such a foreigner lived here, and our examination 
 proves she has been absent eleven days. The 
 people at the Morgue say the body has been 
 about that period in the water ; the initials of the 
 cloak are similar to those upon the rest of her 
 clothing; and though no identity can be estab- 
 lished by the face of the dead woman, as, unfor- 
 tunately, it is sadly disfigured, yet all evidences 
 indicate that the drowned woman is Madame 
 Darlington." 
 
 Girard asked and received permission to ex- 
 amine the rooms, and after putting a few ques- 
 tions to the concierge, said : 
 
 "But of the details; why, for example, should 
 a suicide scream before the act ? That, sir, seems 
 unreasonable. Is it certain the scream was first 
 heard ? " 
 
 " So says Robin," replied the Judge. 
 
 " Robin," repeated Girard, " he who was form- 
 erly an inspector of the Surete? " Girard shrugged
 
 22 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 his shoulders. " Well," he continued, " Robin is 
 not a Vidocq. But we must take this, as it is ; 
 suicide, perhaps, possibly murder surely death 
 and the identity seems certain. But the mo- 
 tive ? Pardon me, sir, but who crossed the bridge 
 at that time?" 
 
 The Commissaire examined his notes, and 
 read : " A young man of good height, who 
 walked with head erect and shoulders squared 
 like a soldier. He greeted Robin, said he had 
 heard a cry, but that was all, and then, passing 
 slowly toward the Place Mazas, disappeared." 
 
 " Robin did not detain him ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Has he been found?" 
 
 " Not yet, but we have a clue from the hack- 
 man who drove him to the Boulevard." 
 
 "The body of course," asserted the detective, 
 "is at the Morgue?" Receiving an assenting 
 reply, he asked the Judge, " At what hour, sir, 
 will you summon these people for the identifi- 
 cation ? " 
 
 After the officials had consulted a moment, 
 the Judge said the inquiry would be continued 
 at ten. 
 
 As the clerk began to read aloud the proces 
 verbal, Girard made his adieus; but at the landing 
 he halted a moment, and watched a man who
 
 RUE ST. PIERRE. 
 
 33 
 
 was mounting the stairway. When the stranger 
 reached the floor he looked about irresolutely 
 for a moment, and then, turning to Girard, asked, 
 pointing to the rooms, 
 
 " Pardon me, is this the apartment of Madame 
 Darlington?" 
 
 Girard replied, and after the new arrival had 
 knocked at the door, and, in obedience to the 
 summons, entered, the detective followed. Bow- 
 ing to the officials who had completed the for- 
 malities of law, the stranger said, with a foreign 
 accent, but with an intonation which was not 
 disagreeable to Parisian ears, 
 
 " Gentlemen, my name is Bentley. I have 
 been told that this room was occupied by a 
 countrywoman of mine, an American, named 
 Darlington, Mrs. Marion Darlington. Is this 
 information correct ? " 
 
 The Judge motioned him to a seat and an- 
 swered, " You have been correctly informed, 
 sir. She is supposed to have committed suicide, 
 and among the papers found is this, addressed 
 to a Colonel Clifford Bentley." 
 
 The American took the manuscript, and after 
 examining the address carefully, appeared to be 
 greatly reassured, for he exclaimed in a happier 
 tone, " This is my name, but I do not know the 
 writer."
 
 3 4 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 As he returned the document, the Judge de- 
 clared : " Of course this must follow the usual 
 forms; but I think when the legal requirements 
 are satisfied, that there will be no delay in send' 
 ing it to you in care of your Minister." 
 
 "I recognize the propriety and necessity of 
 what you say. May I ask, has any definite con- 
 clusion been reached as to this suicide ? " 
 
 "None, except that it seems to have been a 
 sudden determination. The identification is as 
 complete as can be expected under the circum- 
 stances." 
 
 Seals were put upon everything, and when the 
 last formalities were settled with that definite pre- 
 cision which the French code demands, the party 
 descended to the bureau of the concierge. 
 
 As Bentley reached the street, his calm, clear- 
 cut face brightened with a smile, and he said to 
 the detective, 
 
 " M. Girard, though a stranger to you, I know 
 of you very well. There is a mystery here, and 
 being interested, I hope to have the benefit of 
 your advice and assistance. Will a note to the 
 Prefecture reach you to-day ? " 
 
 The Agent thought a moment and answered, 
 " Yes, but I could not see you before this after- 
 noon ; possibly not then." 
 
 "At your convenience, I mean, of course," re-
 
 RUE ST. PIERRE. 
 
 35 
 
 turned Bentley. "I live in the Rue Chaillot, 
 and need your counsel. If you can arrange 
 your other affairs, will you meet me to-day at 
 five ? Yes ? Thanks. For the present good- 
 bye." 
 
 As Clifford Bentley passed up the street, Girard 
 directed the Sergeant who had been on duty at 
 the door to follow, and, turning to the Commis- 
 saire, said, quickly, 
 
 " Will you have Robin report to me about noon, 
 near the Church of St. Pierre de Chaillot? You 
 recall it the one near the Avenue Josephine." 
 
 The Commissaire laughed quietly, and said, 
 " Of course ; but, Girard, there's nothing in this. 
 It is a suicide without a doubt." 
 
 Girard called a fiacre, and told the driver to 
 follow the American who, on his way westward, 
 had almost reached the broader avenue. The 
 Sergeant de Ville had kept him in sight, until 
 relieved by the signal of his superior ; and then, 
 though the Boulevard widened and the way- 
 farers increased, the cabman never lost him; 
 for Bentley had a striking figure, and was, as 
 Girard had described him, " a young man of 
 good height, who walked slowly, with head erect, 
 and shoulders squared like a soldier." 
 
 With the keenness of a hunting dog, the driver, 
 who knew and admired the detective, followed
 
 j 6 ^ DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 unfalteringly, even after the American had passed 
 out of the quiet street and turned toward the 
 heart of the great city, now beating madly with 
 the fevered life of eager day.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE COLONEL'S STORY. 
 
 T^ENTLEY went directly to his apartments in 
 O the Rue Chaillot and made two memoranda 
 of the morning's events. One of these he kept, 
 the other he took to the Legation. Before leav- 
 ing, he found the Second Secretary enjoying one 
 of those rare moments of leisure which the hard- 
 est worked attache in Europe so seldom has. He 
 told his story briefly, and was promised a precis 
 of all the information on file in the case of Mrs. 
 Darlington. 
 
 Leaving the offices he sauntered abstractedly 
 through the gardens to the Boulevards, until he 
 recalled a favorite restaurant in the Rue Neuve 
 des Petits Champs where, what time Terre was 
 gone, they gave Thackeray the Chambertin with 
 yellow seal. As he sat with the morning jour- 
 nals, awaiting his breakfast, idly watching the 
 sunshine gleaming in the water of the carafe, and 
 hearing, in softened echoes, the chant of the street 
 peddlers, he turned from his newspapers to watch 
 
 37
 
 28 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 the bustling throng, and to drink in the life of 
 the busy day. There was to him a compensation 
 in this, for it drew his mind away from the misery 
 of the past ten days and made him forget himself. 
 
 Bentley was an odd compound of active asser- 
 tion and passive negation. His acceptance of 
 most things was tempered by the hope of future 
 struggle, his protest was ever dominated by the 
 fear of speedy submission. With him victory 
 often became defeat, because of his boundless 
 pity, not only for the weak but for the conquered. 
 He had, too, that vague unrest which is the pre- 
 dominant American characteristic; though in the 
 strife of contest, as in the unvexed fields of rest, 
 he could subordinate so perfectly this question- 
 ing of life's realities that those who knew him 
 indifferently fancied him to be ever as calm and 
 passionless as a Japanese idol of bronze. 
 
 He was now eight and thirty, unmarried, and 
 not poor, though equally not rich, in the worldly 
 sense. In figure, he was well balanced and of 
 a good height, giving, however, the suggestion 
 rather of physical skill than of bodily strength. 
 His face was handsome, his eyes were black, and 
 of a brightness which was softened by their large- 
 ness and depth ; and the undisturbed calm of his fea- 
 tures was curiously out of place with the olive com- 
 plexion and the mouth of sensitive curve and play.
 
 THE COLONEL'S STORY. 39 
 
 He had been graduated with honor from An- 
 napolis at an unusually early age, and had done 
 his duty thoroughly in a profession, which, of all, 
 is the most rigorous in the demands it makes 
 upon the physical and mental powers. During 
 the early part of the war his service on shipboard 
 had been brilliant, but, characteristically enough, 
 soon after the passage of the forts below New 
 Orleans, he resigned, entered the volunteer army, 
 and, before the close of the Rebellion, reached 
 the grade of colonel. 
 
 He then plunged into the whirlpool of Wall 
 Street, and, in the days when fortunes were made 
 and lost in the turn of a single stock, found that 
 the life suited him capitally ; not that he was a 
 large operator, but because, with his taste for 
 analysis, he became a sufficiently shrewd judge 
 of the agents producing those effects which the 
 mob accepted as causes, to have made a com- 
 fortable fortune. 
 
 But finally when speculation became a dull 
 routine without profit, and he sold his seat in 
 the Board, Bentley carried with him from Wall 
 Street the kindliest regards of his associates, and 
 left behind a reputation for keenness and cool- 
 ness which became a proverb. 
 
 This was nearly two years before, and as he 
 smoked after breakfast, he reflected, sadly enough,
 
 4 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 with what little profit the time had been passed. 
 Presently, he strolled into the street, and after 
 idling about, trying to arrive at a definite 
 agreement with himself, went to the Prefecture 
 of the Police, which was then, temporarily, in 
 the Etat Majeur de la Garde, and left a note for 
 Girard. 
 
 He saw by the church of St. Pierre as he 
 entered the Rue Chaillot, a stupid moon-faced 
 person who watched him closely, though furtively, 
 and as he opened the door Girard appeared in the 
 distance. 
 
 He worked steadily until nearly four o'clock, 
 arranging papers and writing, and just as he 
 began to doubt if Girard would come, the detec- 
 tive was announced. 
 
 " I congratulate you, Colonel Bentley," he said, 
 taking the chair pointed out and beaming expan- 
 sively; "you are not the man of the bridge." 
 
 " Thanks. What man of the bridge? " 
 
 " Why, our man of the bridge the one whom 
 Robin saw on the night of the suicide." 
 
 " Robin ? " demanded Bentley. " How does 
 he know ? " 
 
 " Because he was the Sergeant who ran to the 
 Pont d'Austerlitz, and narrowly scrutinized the 
 only person who crossed at the time. He is 
 certain it was not you ? "
 
 THE COL ONEL 'S STOR Y. 4 x 
 
 " Robin ? Ah ! you mean the police officer I 
 saw at the corner where you stationed him." 
 
 Girard enjoyed this discovery and congratu- 
 lated Bentley upon his astuteness. 
 
 "Oh, not at all," interrupted the American; 
 " I saw him on the night of the third, and re- 
 membered him." 
 
 " You saw him where? " asked the detective. 
 
 " On the Pont d'Austerlitz. He spoke to me 
 and I answered. He was much excited, and 
 told me that he had heard a cry and a splash, 
 as though somebody had fallen or been pushed 
 into the water." 
 
 "And you ? " said Girard. 
 
 Bentley remained silent a moment before he 
 added, " Yes, I heard the cry and the splash." 
 
 " But may I ask what you were doing on that 
 side of the river at such an hour ? Were you 
 called there by business or pleasure ? " 
 
 " Purely by an affair which troubled me very 
 much," admitted Bentley. " But why this ex- 
 amination ? " 
 
 " Because I am a police officer, -and at a loss 
 for a clue to the death of this American." 
 
 "Am I a clue? Do you connect me in any 
 way with her suicide ? " 
 
 " Frankly, yes, but to what degree I cannot 
 say. Will you help us by revealing why you
 
 4 2 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 went to that quiet district and all that happened 
 there?" 
 
 Bentley played idly with a paper-cutter he 
 had taken from the table, and did not answer 
 at once. Finally he said, " Well, there is not so 
 much to tell, though I have had no rest nor 
 ease since it all occurred. But first as to the 
 identification at the Morgue." 
 
 "The Officier de Sante and the Juge d'in- 
 struction of the arrondisement are satisfied," re- 
 turned Girard. " There were three bodies on the 
 slabs, and the one supposed to be Madame 
 Darlington was so battered and bruised by col- 
 lisions with the piers, and boats and drift-wood 
 that nothing positive could be asserted. The 
 concierge and her husband were present. 
 
 " ' Is it she ? ' demanded the magistrate. 
 
 " ' I cannot tell,' cried the woman, shrinking. 
 ' It is like her, very much like her I think it is 
 the lady.' 
 
 " ' You cannot swear ? ' 
 
 " ' No, but I believe this to be the person 
 who lived in our fourth apartment ' 
 
 " ' Come nearer,' growled the magistrate, you 
 are not afraid of the dead, and in the daylight 
 examine closer.' 
 
 "'Spare me,' begged the woman. And then 
 her husband came forward and said, 'My wife
 
 THE COLONEL'S STORY. 
 
 43 
 
 is right. This is the lady who lived in the Rue 
 St. Pierre. I can swear it, and by these signs/ 
 and he repeated, glibly enough, points of resem- 
 blance which seemed convincing." 
 
 " What is your belief, Monsieur Girard? " urged 
 Bentley. 
 
 " So far as one person may identify another 
 after the tides and currents and fishes have had 
 their way, I should say the descriptions agree. 
 In height, in figure, in costume ; in the time of 
 absence and in the handkerchief found. All these 
 would seem to give a positive proof. Though 
 for the handkerchief pouf ! these people who 
 handle the city's dead are poor and human, and, 
 if one had an object, many things could be done,." 
 
 " When may we bury her ? " asked Bentley. 
 
 " To-morrow is the earliest legal limit, and 
 after that you will be given the manuscript found 
 in her room." 
 
 Bentley arose, went to his desk, and unlocking 
 a drawer carefully examined a number of papers ; 
 he placed his chair so that the light fell directly 
 upon Girard's face, and, as he watched its play, 
 told his story; sometimes he referred to the 
 letters besides him, and often he paused to indi- 
 cate upon a map the locations of which he spoke. 
 He began his narrative at once, and without 
 any preface.
 
 44 ^ DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 For many years Philip Catlin had been his 
 nearest friend, but time, circumstances, a differ- 
 ence of professions and of aims finally separated 
 them; they met, at intervals, however, until two 
 years since, and then Catlin passed out of his 
 life completely. Four months ago he received 
 from Philip's sister a most pathetic letter in 
 which, after reciting certain personal details con- 
 nected with her brother, she asked that a search 
 might be made for him through Italy and 
 France. At her request this was carried on 
 with as little publicity as possible, and in the 
 end was fruitless. 
 
 Two weeks before, on the second of April, he 
 received this letter : 
 
 "If Colonel Clifford Bentley will be on the 
 Pont d'Austerlitz to-morrow night at nine, he may 
 learn something of the friend for whom he is 
 searching" 
 
 Girard asked to see this message. It was 
 signed Marion Darlington, and was written hur- 
 riedly and carelessly in a sharp-pointed American 
 script. 
 
 Upon the third of April, soon after eight o'clock, 
 Bentley drove as far as the Place de la Bastille 
 and, leaving the cab, passed by the Arsenal into 
 the Place Mazas. It was a dark, starless night with 
 scarcely a ghost of a breeze, and yet filled with a
 
 THE COLONEL'S STORY. 
 
 45 
 
 rawness and a chilliness which ate to the bone. 
 He crossed the bridge, and, after resting a mo- 
 ment by the last pier, strolled into the Boulevard 
 L'Hopital looking for the friendly assistance of 
 a light for his cigar. Walking slowly along the 
 street he saw, at the extremity of a blind alley 
 that had escaped the torrent of improvement 
 which opened the broad avenue, the red and 
 white light of a Cabaret-borgne. Groping his 
 way down the little street, he entered and found 
 it to be a darksome, greasy and malodorous 
 shop, wherein a few people, mainly of the work- 
 ing classes, were sitting. All were quiet and 
 sober save a hard-looking character in blouse 
 and cap, who was boosily apostrophising a cheap 
 print of Gambetta which dominated the shelf 
 whereon the bottles were ranged in death-dealing 
 ranks. Behind the zinc-covered bar the woman 
 of the place listened stolidly to the patriotic sen- 
 timents of the person from Belleville, and at the 
 same time kept a wary eye, and an evil one too, 
 not upon the seedy student in velvet coat and 
 red tie and his poor, shabby Bernerette from the 
 Quartier Latin near by but upon the half-muffled 
 figure of a woman who sat in a gloomy corner 
 alone, a woman who, even in the half light, 
 looked out of place just now in this dismal den. 
 Bentley, who recalled all the incidents of the
 
 46 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 night with a memory nothing could obscure, 
 saw that this woman kept her face hidden from 
 view, and that in her pose there was something 
 which told more of the lassitude of despair than 
 of the muscular relaxation due to the cognac 
 she had been drinking. Watching her he tried 
 to fancy the queer fate which, at this period of 
 life, could have brought her to a little dram-shop 
 in the last of the cul-de-sacs. She might have 
 been there earlier, it could have been the begin- 
 ning of that journey when the Brasserie was a 
 paradise of color and music ; she might return 
 there later when her sunshine was eclipsed, 
 but now she seemed more fit for the Cafe Riche, 
 and for the life of idle bee and lavish honey, 
 where diamonds glittered like serpent's eyes 
 upon the shoulders she turned so coldly to the 
 wooing of her lovers. 
 
 He had seen so many like her before, that he 
 wondered if she was thinking with bitter re- 
 gret of those happier days when she worked 
 blithely from morn to evening, when roast chest- 
 nuts and gallete were ambrosia, and a dance 
 at the Grand Chaumiere on Mont St. Parnasse 
 was the offering which opened the gateway of 
 Heaven. 
 
 Bentley called for some cognac, tossed it off 
 with a scarcely disguised grimace, lighted his
 
 THE COLONEL'S STORY. 47 
 
 cigar, and with a salutation to the bar-woman 
 went out of the dreary den. Even the raw air of 
 night was a tonic after the foulness of the place, 
 and stumbling blindly up the ill-paved alley, he 
 heard the bell of a distant church striking the 
 last quarter before nine. 
 
 At the Boulevard he saluted a police official 
 and made his way quickly and expectantly to 
 the bridge. No one awaited him. He crossed 
 hastily, and with a growing nervousness and im- 
 patience stood in the screen of a friendly shadow 
 until the night was noisy with the chime of 
 clocks in spire and steeple. 
 
 " Few people had passed up to this time," he 
 continued, in a voice strident with excitement, 
 " and as I watched the roadway I saw finally that 
 the bridge was deserted. Waiting until the fall- 
 ing mist had chilled me, I walked slowly from 
 pier to pier, and at last, believing I had been 
 duped, was about to go home, when I discovered 
 a woman stealing out of the gloom from the Pays 
 Latin side of the river. 
 
 "She moved irresolutely, but always in the 
 shadows where through the yellow fog the lamps 
 shone with a spectral glow. I cannot describe 
 her even in the most general way, except that 
 she was tall and of good proportions. She 
 paused often as if waiting, and once she retraced
 
 48 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 her steps ; but she soon turned, and with more 
 resolution pressed forward until she reached a 
 point nearly twenty yards from my hiding-place. 
 
 " Here a new impulse seemed suddenly to gov- 
 ern her, for, as if terrified, she shrank quickly 
 behind a pier-head, and at that moment another 
 woman rushed madly past her and onward to 
 the centre of the bridge. Without the least hesi- 
 tation this one, in a fierce desperation, climbed to 
 the parapet, and then, with uplifted hands, and 
 in silence, sprang into the darkness and death of 
 the river. 
 
 " At that instant the night was smitten by a 
 cry of terror, and as the woman I first saw reeled 
 and fell in the pathway, there followed, above the 
 rumble of tide and the sob of rising wind, the 
 roar of the disturbed waters as they opened to 
 engulf the falling body. 
 
 " Panic-stricken, I clambered to the broad shelf 
 of stone, and as I hung over its edge, peering 
 for some sign from the murky depths, I heard 
 behind me the toilsome scramble of climbing 
 feet; turning, I beheld the other woman scaling 
 the railing beyond. When she stood upon the 
 wide cap of the parapet, she wrung her hands 
 in nervous terror, leaned far over, and with 
 uplifted arms she too made ready to spring. 
 What I called out, I cannot tell, but it held
 
 THE COLONEL'S STORY, ^g 
 
 her spell-bound, and as I jumped toward her 
 she staggered, swayed and fell fell, thank God, 
 not in the angry current, but upon the road- 
 way. 
 
 " I was dazed ; unmanned, and in that moment 
 of hesitation she gained her feet, flew shoreward, 
 and, with a sharp turn at the Gardens, disap- 
 peared, as if the land had entombed her, even as 
 the night and tide had drawn to death the one 
 she had tried to follow." 
 
 Bentley shaded his eyes with one hand and 
 with the other seemed to be exorcising from sight 
 and memory the horrors of the night. 
 
 " What could I do ? " he added. " Who would 
 believe my story ? And, besides, leaving out the 
 probabilities of suspicion being arrayed against 
 me, I shrank from the notoriety my unsought, 
 innocent connection with the suicide, would bring. 
 
 " With such self-possession as I could muster, 
 I crossed the bridge and met Robin. He was 
 much excited by all he knew and suspected. 
 To his inquiries, I replied that I had heard the 
 cry and the splash, and, as he seemed helpless, 
 I advised him to find a boat at once, and, with a 
 bare chance of rescue, to follow the tide. Two 
 workmen joined us, and half learning the story, 
 hurried upon this errand, and spared me the 
 necessity of offering an assistance which I felt 
 4
 
 t; O A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 would be useless. As Robin started to search 
 the bridge, I hastened to the Place de la Bastille, 
 and, finding my cab, was driven to the Boulevard. 
 
 "And that is all, though the horror of the scene 
 is always with me. When I received word late 
 last night from an official that a body answering 
 the description given by me had been found, I 
 went to the Morgue, and was directed to the 
 house in the Rue St. Pierre, where I met you this 
 morning." 
 
 Girard's experience had never been before tan- 
 gent to such a circle as this. The very improb- 
 ability of the confession meant much to him as 
 proof of its truth; the confidence it implied 
 touched him, and its general features agreed 
 with what Robin had reported. For though 
 Robin was a dolt from the astute Girard's point 
 of view, he was not such a fool as the little trap 
 laid for Bentley by the latter would have implied. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Bentley," said Girard. 
 " I have been doing you the injustice of believ- 
 ing you an ordinary criminal. You are either a 
 very clever one or an innocent man. I think, 
 honestly, you are the latter. But we are all apt 
 to be rogues, you know; it is simply a question 
 of temptation and opportunity. I am at fault, 
 and for the present my hands are tied." 
 
 " The books," answered Bentley, in a lighter
 
 THE COL ONEL 'S STOR Y. 5 l 
 
 vein, "rarely permit you this luxury. They 
 describe you as mysterious beings, and give you 
 the gift of discovering new worlds from the 
 faintest shadows of the universe." 
 
 "Yes, it reads well. That is, Monsieur Ga- 
 boriau does. No, sir ; we are simply men who 
 believe and remember trifles. Many of us have 
 been rogues, and we catch these gentlemen, 
 because we know how they reason. There are 
 steps wanting in my ladder, but with patience 
 and good luck I may find them in the end. 
 Ah, yes ! with good luck, for, after all, that is 
 where the dramatic strokes, the coups de theatre 
 which the novelists tell of us, have their being." 
 
 Bentley's servant here brought him an official 
 communication from the Legation. Opening it, 
 he turned the leaves eagerly, for it was a history 
 of the correspondence between Marion Darling- 
 ton and the Minister in relation to the search for 
 Philip Catlin. The last paragraph was a sad 
 one. It read : " The Minister has learned from 
 the Foreign Office that Philip Catlin, the person 
 sought, committed suicide on the fifth of March, 
 in the Hospital of the Convict Station at Toulon, 
 to which prison he had been sent, under an 
 assumed name, for robbery." 
 
 The shock to Bentley was very great, and 
 though he felt, to some degree, guilty for his
 
 52 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 failure to find Catlin, he realized that no effort of 
 his could have forestalled the fate which had 
 pursued his friend. 
 
 By this time it was nearly six o'clock, and the 
 sunlight was stealing from the sky. When Gir- 
 ard prepared to leave, Bentley said he would 
 accompany him a part of the way, for this 
 trouble urged him by an irresistible impulse to 
 seek the scene where these tragedies had come 
 into his life. He could not trace any explicit 
 relation between Catlin and Mrs. Darlington, but 
 he confessed that he owed some expiation to 
 the poor friend who had perished so miserably. 
 
 As they rose to go the servant again entered, 
 and gave Bentley a card. " Marsden," he read 
 aloud, with a sudden new happiness. " So she 
 is in Paris ; thank God for that ! " While waiting 
 for the gentleman to appear, he said to Girard, 
 " Can you remain, for we may learn something 
 bearing on this very case." 
 
 Girard resumed his seat, just as Henry Marsden 
 entered the room. He was a tall, well-built man, 
 over fifty years of age, with iron-grey hair and 
 moustache, and features that were characterized 
 by the certain fretfulness of expression which 
 reveals the invalid who thinks mainly of his 
 ailments. He was distinguished in bearing, was 
 dressed quietly in the best possible form, and
 
 THE COLONEL'S STORY. 
 
 53 
 
 his entrance and salutation fixed his social op- 
 portunities and position at once. Bentley greeted 
 him warmly, introduced Girard simply by name, 
 and then, after the few conventional inquiries, 
 there intervened that half instant of constrained 
 silence when the desire to speak in confidence 
 is confronted by the presence of a third party. 
 Marsden looked inquiringly at Girard, and said 
 in French, for there was no doubting the detec- 
 tive's nationality, 
 
 " I have come, Bentley, upon a matter which 
 I desire to have considered by you, as early as 
 your leisure will permit. It relates mainly to 
 myself." 
 
 Bentley replied: "At any time," and, with 
 an intuition that was the outcome of the sub- 
 ordination of his mental processes to the affair 
 which had occupied and disturbed him so much 
 of late, added, quickly, 
 
 " May I ask you, is this in connection with a 
 Mrs. Darlington ? " 
 
 This question affected Marsden as an unex- 
 pected blow might have done. Its immediate 
 apparent result was a nervousness that was mani- 
 fested in the trembling manner with which he 
 stroked his moustache, and turned and twisted 
 the ring of curious pattern he wore upon the 
 third finger of his left hand.
 
 54 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 " Pardon my abruptness," Bentley apologized ; 
 " but this has been a season of sad surprises." 
 
 " Yes," Marsden replied, and now ignoring 
 Girard by speaking in English, "Yes, I have 
 come for that purpose." 
 
 " Then you may talk frankly, for we all have 
 an interest in this woman. Monsieur Girard is 
 an Agent of the Surete, and, I believe, will be 
 of great assistance." 
 
 " We are trying to unravel this affair," said 
 Girard, in excellent English, for he had lived at 
 one time in the United States, " though at present 
 we are at fault But there are clues. Colonel 
 Bentley, who was one, has been disappointing, 
 in a certain sense, at least; still there are 
 others." 
 
 " It seems, then, to be a serious affair ? " Mars- 
 den asked. 
 
 " So serious," returned Bentley, " that no one 
 can be more interested than I to find why Mrs. 
 Darlington killed herself." 
 
 " Killed herself! " cried Marsden, rising from 
 his chair. " Dead ! She is not dead ? " 
 
 Was it anguish or joy which most rang in this 
 sudden inquiry ? 
 
 When he controlled his nervousness, Marsden 
 said : " Bentley, this makes my duty a simple one. 
 I arrived but two hours since from the South,
 
 THE COL ONEL 'S STOR Y. 55 
 
 I have hurried without rest from Algiers, for I 
 hoped to have averted all chances of calamity, of 
 disaster but, it seems now, in vain." 
 
 He took from the pocket of his overcoat several 
 letters, and, looking at each one carefully, handed 
 them to Bentley and explained : 
 
 " These bear directly upon the case, though 
 they will be of little avail in proving why the 
 mad woman who wrote them should have com- 
 mitted suicide. May I ask you to read them, 
 and give me the benefit of your advice. What- 
 ever intentions I may have had are necessarily 
 changed by the death of this person, and I 
 cannot act unless my way is made more clear. 
 There are," he added, bowing to Girard, " certain 
 objections to any one but Colonel Bentley, read- 
 ing these letters ; of course, should the necessity 
 arise, we hope to avail ourselves of the experience 
 of M. Girard an experience which we all know 
 to be so valuable." 
 
 At this, the detective turned towards the speaker. 
 He had been standing at the window, apparently 
 watching the pigeons circling above the cotes of 
 a neighboring fancier, and listening to the inter- 
 view only in that deprecatory way which would 
 make the principals understand how subordinate 
 his interest had now become. But, with this 
 direct reference to himself, he brought his heels
 
 ij 6 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 together with a snap, made his finest Continental 
 bow, and, waving his hands in graceful curves 
 which joined his hat and bosom, included them 
 both in the sphere of his respectful considera- 
 tion. 
 
 Marsden left the room, and, at the landing, 
 exclaimed, 
 
 " Bentley, this damned affair has upset me. 
 Come and see us. We are at the old hotel, and 
 Isabel, of course, is here." 
 
 A light of anticipation shone in Bentley's eyes, 
 as he answered, 
 
 " I shall give myself the pleasure of calling 
 to-morrow ; and Miss Marsden ? " 
 
 " Oh, she is very well. By the way, she said 
 something about having met old Mrs. Harber, 
 who has asked us to her reception this evening ? 
 Are you going ? " 
 
 Bentley had not intended availing himself of 
 his invitation, though he liked Mrs. Harber very 
 well. The truth is, just now, he was too much 
 hipped to join in the gayeties which the post- 
 Lenten season had brought with disquieting fre- 
 quency, but he replied, unhesitatingly, 
 
 " Oh yes, and you may be assured I shall do 
 my very best in this sad affair." 
 
 There was a window in Bentley's sitting-room, 
 opening upon a narrow street, which, after desert-
 
 THE COLONEL'S STORY. 
 
 57 
 
 ing the main avenue, slunk into a devious route, 
 where finally it was lost by the friendly aid of 
 diverging by-ways. Girard was standing by this 
 casement, and, as Bentley entered the room, had 
 just passed a handkerchief with a quick curve 
 before his face. From a corner where the brick 
 walls of a garden frame this little passageway, 
 there came an answering signal, and then Robin 
 passing hurriedly over the open space, dove into 
 its depths, and was engulfed in the darkness 
 resting upon the hushed city. 
 
 Night had fallen, and as Girard made his 
 adieus he said, 
 
 "When shall I report again?" 
 
 "To-morrow, and thank you for coming to- 
 day. If possible, please be here at ten." 
 
 "And you are sure," he asked, looking at the 
 American with a glance which missed no play 
 of feature nor any thrill of voice, "You are 
 sure that the other woman fell upon the bridge, 
 and not in the river." 
 
 " As sure of it as I am that I see you now," 
 answered Bentley. 
 
 " And she ran and was lost in the darkness ? " 
 
 " She ran," repeated Bentley, gravely, " with 
 the fleetness of a hunted deer, and was lost in 
 the darkness." 
 
 As they stood at the landing, Bentley put his
 
 5 8 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 arms upon Girard's shoulders, and turning so 
 that the light shone clearly upon himself, said, 
 slowly, 
 
 "Shall I swear it?"
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ISABEL. 
 
 FROM the beginning, the suicide he had wit- 
 nessed had been a cause of profound grief 
 to Bentley, and its mystery and the utter help- 
 lessness of his association with it made him feel 
 that a persistent fate was darkening his days. 
 
 It was only natural that he sought constantly 
 for any news of the drowned woman. No day 
 passed in which he did not go to the Morgue, 
 and there was no bridge, save one, no boat land- 
 ing nor bathing float he had not visited in this 
 sad quest. Up and down the Quais, in the broad 
 daylight and under the starlit sky, he had walked 
 with this grim persistency of purpose, until, at 
 last, even the testy gentlemen seeking choice 
 editions on the Quais Malaquais and Voltaire, 
 knew him as well as did the gruff old soldier 
 who sat in the sunshine and the rain near the 
 entrance to the Pont Neuf. 
 
 But in all these wanderings he never went to 
 the fatal bridge, for he felt that if he stood upon 
 
 59
 
 60 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 the spot, even for a moment, he too would climb 
 the parapet, he too would lift his hands to the 
 pitiless heavens, and, without a cry, he too would 
 throw himself into the current, flowing less slug- 
 gishly perhaps, but no less certain, than the 
 waters which have dashed in sullen fury against 
 the arches of the Pont Royal many a mortal not 
 half so mad as he. 
 
 The route he followed was through the Rue 
 Bizet to the Pont de 1'Alma, and so to the Pont 
 de Constantine where, amid the throng of foot 
 passengers, he seemed the only loiterer. But he 
 went no further. Here for hours he would sit, 
 always rehearsing the tragedy he had seen ; and 
 here, with straining eyes and beating heart, he 
 would watch the moving masses on the high 
 banks of the river, the stream creeping along 
 with fantastic reflections of the colored boat- 
 houses, the bridges joining their arches in its 
 depths and the noisy boats borne upon its bosom. 
 The life and bustle of the throngs descending 
 the terraces were all to him a part of the great 
 tragedy, and the murmur of the stream at night 
 and the cool whispering of the spring-tide breezes, 
 were a chorus of grief which the day had hushed 
 but could not still. 
 
 When the body was found there was a sudden 
 release to the strain upon his mind, such as
 
 ISABEL. 6 1 
 
 might happen to a metal spring, when, under 
 the tension of narrowing convolutions, it has 
 reached a point of exertion, where it must break 
 or discard the throttling force. The reaction, 
 fortunately, was not so great as the action, though 
 more sudden ; and when he learned that between 
 Catlin and Marion Darlington there was a rela- 
 tion which in some degrees justified the part he 
 had been called upon to play, he turned hope- 
 fully, and with a livelier expectation of success, 
 to a study of the documents before him. 
 
 After Girard left he lighted his St. Germain 
 lamp, stirred into a friendly flame the soft coal 
 fire which he excused as a necessity of his sur- 
 roundings, and sat down to a patient reading of 
 the papers. 
 
 In addition to the official correspondence there 
 were four letters, three left by Marsden and one 
 which he took from his writing desk. All of 
 these he examined carefully, making notes for 
 future reference, and then he put them in a large 
 envelope, which he sealed and secreted in his 
 desk. 
 
 The sense of exquisite relief he was experi- 
 encing shone in his face, and found an outcome 
 in the joyousness of his mood. He hummed a 
 jocund tune, threw back the curtains, and in the 
 echoes of the rattling cabs, in the song of the
 
 6 2 < DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 night winds, in the subdued roar of the distant 
 crowded streets, in the gleaming lights of the 
 squares and parks, and in their lessening glim- 
 mer as they crept to the hill tops ; in all of 
 these he found a lesson of hope which har- 
 monized with the unbroken vault of lapus- 
 lazuli sky where a crescent moon sailed up- 
 ward in the glory of coming completeness. 
 
 He dressed hurriedly, and going into the 
 street bade the driver of the cab which he had 
 ordered to take him, by way of the Champs Ely- 
 sees, to Verfours. There was a joy even in this 
 freedom from the bondage to an idea which had 
 hitherto impelled him when going eastward to 
 take the devious way by quais and bridges. His 
 own street was quiet, for at this hour it became an 
 unruffled corner in a current where eddies ceased 
 to fret; but as the cab rattled into the broad 
 avenue, he encountered the first creeping of the 
 lesser flood, which during the late afternoon 
 breaks full burdened at the Arc de Triomphe 
 into estuaries that sweep placidly through the 
 pleasant fields of fashion encircling this land 
 of fruitful ease. As the cab drove under the 
 opening tendrils and swinging branches of the 
 Champs, he drew a fresher inspiration from the 
 scene; and as the elixir of new-born content, 
 compounded half of the night and half of his
 
 ISABEL. 63 
 
 hopes, surged in his veins and warmed his heart, 
 life seemed a better gift than he had thought it 
 ever could be again. 
 
 After his dinner he went to a cafe in the 
 Boulevard, rarely sought by the English-speak- 
 ing part of his present world, and, wrapped in 
 his overcoat, sat at one of the outside tables over 
 a petit verre and a cigar. As he smoked he was 
 joined presently by a former attache of the 
 American Legation, who had forsworn diplo- 
 macy for commerce, and whose lightness of 
 character in financial affairs was excused by a 
 perverid generosity, which showed that his per- 
 petual pecuniary difficulties arose mainly from a 
 foolish kind-heartedness. 
 
 " Hallo, Bentley, old boy," cried Linton, 
 " WHERE have you been ? We have missed you 
 for an age. Have a drink ? Eugene ! " 
 
 Bentley did not want the cognac, though he 
 had a fine contempt for the Phillistinism which 
 denied it, and he did want to smoke his cigar in 
 a quiet retrospect of the day. But he did not 
 reject the offer, nor did he discourage Linton, 
 who, in his own language, was " a little sprung." 
 
 " I suppose you do not care much for this 
 tipple, though for me " and Linton said this 
 unaffectedly enough, but with an air which, with 
 his costume, had made him seem foolish and
 
 6 4 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 foreign to his fellow-townsmen when he was last 
 at home, "though, for me, I am broke and can 
 afford nothing but spirits of some sort or vin bleu 
 outside the Barriere. Not that either is bad, but 
 you are a nouveau, Bentley. You do not remem- 
 ber the old days ; I do, though I was only a 
 kid then, and my fond papa believed I was ab- 
 sorbing culture over here ; the days when the 
 Belleville contingent used to sing," and Linton 
 absolutely piped up, as the reedy tenors do in the 
 cafes chantants, with a drawl on the last syllable 
 of each line, 
 
 " Pour eviter la rage 
 De la femme dont je suis 1'epoux 
 Je trouve dans le vin a quat' sous, 
 L'esperance de veuvage ; 
 Venez, venez, sages et fous, 
 Venez, venez, boire avec nous, 
 Le vin a quat' sous." 
 
 There was a tall gentleman with a hooked 
 nose, snaky locks, a ribbon and brilliantly pol- 
 ished boots sitting at the next table, who mani- 
 fested much silent displeasure at this canzonet; 
 but Linton " eyed him down beautifully," as he 
 phrased it, and so complacently, that this highly 
 displeased person took it out of the first waiter 
 who approached him. 
 
 " Of course, Bentley," airily continued the un-
 
 ISABEL. g,j 
 
 abashed Linton, " my foolishness don't bother you, 
 and do you know, if it were not for your dislike of 
 a scene, I wouldn't mind taking a rise out of old 
 Fonts et C/taussees over there, and be hanged to 
 his sour mug, by lilting a choice bit I heard at 
 the Bal last night. But I am saved the assault 
 behold, he flies ! " 
 
 The tall gentleman withdrew to a more distant 
 table, and Linton, who was always ready for any 
 sort of a mild row where he fancied himself ag- 
 grieved, and could forget the cause even more 
 quickly, said, with much amusement, 
 
 " But I say, have you heard the news ? Have 
 you seen the evening papers ? No ? Eugene ! " 
 When the waiter brought all that could be found 
 to this reckless distributor of pour-boires, Linton 
 pointed out in each an advertisement begging a 
 certain C. D. to return, and " all would be forgiven." 
 
 "There's a deuce of a row about this, for, 
 as every body knows, C. D. is the charming 
 but fiery Camille Desmoulins, who, for years, has 
 been the evil fortune of men whose roles are star 
 ones. Just now she has almost been the ruin 
 of Papeete Hoffman, as he is called, and the in- 
 sens^te young fool having lost her, and being 
 afraid, it is said, of certain threats she made, 
 has given up the detectives, and is advertising 
 her like a patent soap." 
 5
 
 66 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 "When did she disappear?" inquired Bentley. 
 
 "We do not know. I met Hoffman over a 
 week ago, when he was on a terrific spree with a 
 man named Brewer, a countryman of ours from 
 Denver and he was then lamenting her deser- 
 tion in bitter though alcoholic tears." 
 
 "When were these advertisements first pub- 
 lished ? " said Bentley, with as much show of in- 
 terest as he could appear to take in Linton's tale. 
 
 " These endearing enticements to the obdurate 
 C. D. have been here for three days. Curious, is 
 it not, and all the good fishes there are in this 
 Parisian sea. Well, it's an odd world ; and, by 
 the way, have another drink ? Oh, I beg par- 
 don ! Have a drink ? No gentleman ever drinks 
 another anything. Don't smile, that is an old 
 formula ; parent, Adam ; period, old red sand- 
 stone ; sentence, death by hanging. You will 
 not? Well, as we are all Germans now Auf 
 Wiedersehen. 
 
 The joyous and frivolous flaneur departed, 
 saluting, and being greeted by many persons 
 in the throng about the tables and on the pave- 
 ment ; and as he answered inquiries and parried 
 thrusts with ready wit and genial courtesy the 
 smiles which followed, showed that here, at least, 
 the idle world, took at its best, the sunny tem- 
 perament it liked so well.
 
 ISABEL. 
 
 6 7 
 
 As he passed slowly westward, Bentley watched 
 him with a smiling envy, and though he knew there 
 was no place for Linton in any world that he would 
 create, still he could not deny his usefulness as rep- 
 resenting Youth, Hope, Faith, Money, Paris, Para- 
 dise. 
 
 Then Bentley, for his cigar was aglow with a 
 brightness which sent out wreathing fairy clouds 
 wherein he saw a cheerier vista, took comfort in 
 the thought of the work he yet might do. He 
 dreamed of possibilities hitherto put behind as 
 the follies of a mad ambition, and as his fancies 
 multiplied they shaped themselves about one 
 great hope that his lips had never dared to 
 whisper. 
 
 He looked at his watch, and found it was 
 time to be going ; but, as he paused a moment 
 to scan the journals, he saw in each the briefest 
 mention of the inquiry at the Morgue, and in 
 all the name of Marion Darlington was curiously 
 misspelled. 
 
 When Bentley left his cab, near the Rue de 
 Versailles, and mounted the stairs of Mrs. Har- 
 ber's hotel, he confessed to an expectancy of joy 
 which revealed how much the responsibilities he 
 had assumed were allied with another ; for apart 
 from his sincere liking for his hostess and her 
 amiable granddaughters he had come to this re-
 
 68 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 ception to meet, again and after an absence of 
 six months, Henry Marsden's daughter. 
 
 The rooms were uncomfortably crowded, and 
 he was a little delayed in making his bow, by a 
 flood of visitors which overwhelmed and sur- 
 prised him, as it was unusual in these somewhat 
 exclusive seas, where the hostess believed she 
 was not only a widowed Amphitrite, but all the 
 other little gods and goddesses in one. When 
 she saw Bentley, her bright, black eyes sparkled 
 merrily, and she received him with a warmth 
 which was effusive. He felt grateful for this 
 marked reception, though it would have been less 
 consoling had he known that it afforded her a 
 much desired opportunity of keeping in petulant 
 waiting, an unsufferable person of high official 
 position, whose self-esteem was so out of pro- 
 portion to his merits as to have the measure of a 
 superior impertinence. 
 
 Bentley moving quietly amid the throng, 
 found his way between the elbows and the trains 
 with a coolness which accentuated his air of per- 
 fect familiarity with such scenes. It so happened 
 that he knew many of the men and women about 
 him, and, in his pilgrimage through the rooms, 
 he emitted, to their greetings, calm phrases of 
 salutation which cooled the air. Seemingly 
 intent upon nothing, he was in truth, searching
 
 ISABEL. 6g 
 
 anxiously for Miss Marsden. At last he dis- 
 covered her in a corner somewhat shut off from 
 the ball-room by a friendly screen of foliage, 
 where she was listening to an old gentleman, 
 who, while talking volubly about nothing, was 
 thinking longingly of the buffet As Bentley 
 went toward her, the elderly person beamed upon 
 him as the man in the gap, and after mumbling 
 the commonplaces with which he always covered 
 such retreats, this ancient dandy made his way 
 jauntily to the inner room. 
 
 Bentley saw that this departure was a mutual 
 relief, and accepted the cordial greeting Miss 
 Marsden gave him, not so much as a manifes- 
 tation of her special gladness at the meeting, but 
 as a votive offering for her rescue in a season of 
 sore distress. As she stood there, framed by 
 the greenery of the plants, Bentley thought he 
 had never seen her looking so beautiful, and he 
 half regretted the haste that had lost him the 
 opportunity of studying for a while, and from a 
 little distance, the pictures which she made. 
 
 Her figure was straight, lithe, and of true pro- 
 portions ; her neck rose in a graceful curve and 
 proudly sustained a head which, by its poise 
 alone, gave an immediate impression of her 
 beauty; her coloring was as fresh and fair as 
 summer roses, and her face was graced by
 
 ^o A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 those gifts which give to brilliancy its sweetness 
 and to worth its innocence ; for every feature 
 told of nobility, dignity, intelligence, purity, and 
 gentle courtesy. Her voice was soft and beauti- 
 fully modulated, her intonation flowing in a rich 
 fullness, mellowed by broad vowels and un- 
 marred by jarring note, and of a quietness which 
 saved it from the affectation that mistakes the 
 faults of a social clique for the stamps of breed- 
 ing. Her blue eyes looked into your own with 
 a widespread openness, which revealed the deeps 
 no thoughts of evil had ever dimmed ; her smile 
 gladdened as the sunshine of cool, bright morn- 
 ings, and to meet her was like journeying into 
 the heart of spring. 
 
 Without effort, and often without knowledge, 
 she was one of those who win the honest de- 
 votion of all sorts and conditions of men, and 
 in a confiding sincerity she gave to all an equal 
 liking and no more. In everything which makes 
 the sweetness and delight of womanhood, she 
 was womanly, and others, jealous of her success, 
 who could not deny this charm, confessed in 
 moments of self-abasement that, after all, the crown 
 of woman is womanhood. To-night, as Bent- 
 ley always remembered, she was dressed in white, 
 which was relieved by a corsage of sun-flecked 
 Marechal Niels ; and spanning the soft lace which
 
 ISABEL. yi 
 
 wreathed her bosom, as silver mists at sunset 
 sleep on tinted clouds, she wore an open-work 
 Spanish brooch, which displayed in quaint and 
 picturesque lettering, the word YSABEL. 
 
 " I heard of your arrival only to-day," said 
 Bentley, " and I need not say how glad we are, 
 for you have brought the spring, and the thanks 
 of tout-Paris should be a compensation for this 
 exile from the South." 
 
 This was unusual, even such a commonplace 
 little compliment, in Bentley, and, smiling 
 brightly, she answered, 
 
 " Oh, no ! I do not regret the South ; we are 
 birds of passage, you know." 
 
 In a few moments they were in the full tide 
 of reminiscent talk ; this, on Bentley's part, to 
 hide the joy the meeting brought him, and on 
 hers, to hold the happy mood which revealed 
 his character in a newer light. 
 
 Their acquaintance was not an old one ; for 
 though Bentley had known Marsden for many 
 years, it was only in the last summer he had 
 met Isabel. He had been idling away his days 
 in Holland, and, for pure lack of intention in any 
 other direction, had gone to Denmark. Here, at 
 Marsden's request, he went with them on a six 
 weeks' trip to the North Cape ; later, there had 
 been a chance meeting in the Engadine, and then
 
 72 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 they separated, leaving him with a sense of lone- 
 liness which was a new factor in his life. 
 
 " It is a pleasant place," he said, "this Europe; 
 and I half regret to go away, even for a little 
 while, one can be so lazy here without reproach 
 or effort, but in a few weeks I may have to leave 
 for India." 
 
 "And we are on our way home," she replied. 
 
 Bentley had not known this, and, with a disap- 
 pointment which he did not try to conceal, he an- 
 swered, 
 
 " I am sorry to hear that, as I had hoped to 
 meet you next summer in England. At the worst 
 mine is but a flying trip, and I confess it will be 
 a regret not to find you here upon my return." 
 The sadness of the separation depressed him, 
 for he asked, despondently, "Are you glad to 
 go home?" 
 
 She replied with earnestness, "Naturally, for 
 I have longed these many months for the freer 
 air and wider commons of America. To me 
 there is no place like it, though, of course, I 
 quite understand in many ways what foreigners 
 say of it and of us. But, indeed, I am so glad 
 to return, that I hope never to come abroad 
 again." 
 
 " You have been in Rome ? " he inquired, 
 lending himself to her enthusiasm.
 
 ISABEL. 
 
 73 
 
 "Yes, this winter; and for the first time I did 
 not drink of the Fountain of Trevi." 
 
 Though Bentley smiled at the quickness which 
 had solved his question, he was touched by the 
 mal du pays trembling on her lips, and by the 
 tears which glistened in her eyes, as diamonds 
 in the depths of encircling sapphires. He knew 
 she was abandoning of her own will, and gladly, 
 social opportunities which mean much to women, 
 and turning to another vein, he said: "Then you 
 are safe, and, if it is a comfort to hear this, let me 
 tell you we will miss you ; not," he added, thought- 
 fully, "because there are so few here, I mean 
 among the exiles, who have even a sentimental 
 fancy for home, but because life will be different 
 for many who cannot follow." 
 
 Marsden joined them at this moment, and with 
 some excitement began airing his opinions of the 
 American colony ; Bentley laughed quietly at the 
 tremendous condemnation the harangue seemed 
 to imply, and said, as he was about to go : " Well, 
 this house in any event I like, and, as I must say 
 good-bye, you may be sure I, at least, will be as 
 sincere as its hospitality deserves." 
 
 As he came from the room where he had left 
 his overcoat, Marsden stopped him. 
 
 "We are going also, Bentley. By the way, 
 have you read the letters ? "
 
 74 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 " Yes, carefully." 
 
 " What do you think of them?" 
 
 " I think," Bentley replied, not caring to give 
 a more definite answer, "the woman was de- 
 mented, and that you have acted with discretion." 
 
 " You have said nothing to my daughter, in 
 any way, of this affair?" inquired Marsden. 
 
 " Nothing ; but can you come to my rooms 
 to-morrow ? " 
 
 " To-morrow ? yes, with pleasure." 
 
 " Shall we say at four ? " 
 
 Marsden thought a moment and answered : 
 " I regret not but can you make it five o'clock ? 
 Yes ? Well, expect me, without fail." 
 
 Bentley turned to go, and Marsden, whose 
 manner was certainly very good when he cared 
 to make the effort, hesitated, and then exclaimed, 
 with a pleading which he could not control, 
 
 " Bentley, I feel this affair terribly, mainly now, 
 as it seems to be without remedy. I fear it for 
 my daughter's sake, because I realize what this 
 suicide would mean, should she ever hear of it. 
 Help us out of it, will you not ? " 
 
 As Clifford Bentley slowly walked down the 
 street in the cool starlight, he saw, framed in a 
 carriage window and making sunshine in his 
 night, the sweet face of Isabel Marsden, and he 
 knew he would serve her to the end.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A QUEER LOT. 
 
 WHEN Girard came the next morning, Bent- 
 ley learned that all arrangements had been 
 made with the arrondisement agent of the Pom- 
 pes Funebres for burying Mrs. Darlington in Mont- 
 martre. The detective had nothing new to report, 
 and seemed to be disturbed by the inscrutability 
 of several mysteries which, of late, were reflect- 
 ing unfavorably upon the reputation of his corps. 
 
 Bentley asked the police theory of the adver- 
 tisements which implored C. D. to return, and 
 found that Camille Desmoulins, the subject of the 
 inquiry, was, as Linton had said, a demi-mondaine, 
 whose history was written in short paragraphs, 
 and punctuated with exclamation points. Girard 
 knew the salient points of her record thoroughly. 
 
 She was a child of the dregs, born, heaven 
 only knew where, and brought up, heaven only 
 could tell why, by Mere Blinder, the chiffoniere. 
 After being graduated from the gutters of the Rue 
 de la Chapelle, she was sold for an obolus to a 
 
 75
 
 76 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 young thief, who starved and beat her, until one 
 day she betrayed to the police his share in a crime 
 which sent him to Cayenne for life. 
 
 She then lived as these Pariahs exist every- 
 where, and finally, at a Barriere Ball, danced her- 
 self into the affections of a tradesman who gave 
 her a decent training, lavished the profit and capi- 
 tal of his shop upon her, and when she deserted 
 him for a Bohemian journalist, killed himself out- 
 side her door. Girard remembered her perfectly, 
 and told, with an unctuous appreciation of suc- 
 cessful villainy, how she had risen on her ladder, 
 step by step, till at last a day came when she played 
 no inconsiderable part in the drama of that lesser 
 society which sometimes rules the greater. 
 
 She was, the Agent said, the worst w r oman he 
 had ever known one of those veritable daughters 
 of the devil who, with the demureness of a rosiere, 
 and the face of a saint, ruin more families than the 
 worst of fraudulent bankers. The golden days of 
 her triumphs were amid the sympathetic surround- 
 ings of the empire's dissolution, but of late her star 
 had waned. 
 
 For over a year she had held in the meshes of 
 her deviltries young Hoffman, the son of a mer- 
 chant, who had left an enormous fortune, made 
 by a trade monopoly with the Marquesas and Ta- 
 hiti. The menage had not been an unhappy one,
 
 A QUEER LOT. 77 
 
 until this quarrel, which, though not the first, by 
 any means, was, Girard believed, their last. What 
 had brought it about, no one knew, but it must 
 have been most serious, for, as Camille left the 
 house, she swore by one of the oaths which these 
 women keep for a final restraint and seldom vio- 
 late, that she would never see him nor his world 
 again. 
 
 Hoffman had heard these threats before, but 
 only when they were shrieked or sobbed in the 
 idleness of an anger which expected consolation, 
 and, for a time, he did not worry over her disap- 
 pearance. He was a fat, blonde Alsatian, with 
 merry blue eyes, the face of a dissipated cherub, 
 and the heart of a fairy godmother ; indeed, he 
 was much too good a fellow to sow his wild oats 
 for such a reaping, and, in the end, proved to be 
 a regenerate and shining mark. He had a sin- 
 cere liking for Camille, though a little wearied 
 by her temper ; and she, so her rivals confessed 
 with pity, really cared more for him than for the 
 others the dozens she had blown from her 
 fingers. 
 
 He sulked for a week, gambled beyond any 
 sort of prudence, and lost a considerable sum at 
 baccarat to that mysterious Captain Marker 
 Blunt, late (so his cards said) of H. B. M.'s 
 Fourteenth West India Regiment, whose good
 
 j 8 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 luck was as unquestionable as his skill in hit- 
 ting the bull's eye at any number of paces with 
 any weapon. When Hoffman felt satisfied that 
 both cards and love were equally unlucky, he 
 settled down to a premeditated dissipation, which 
 was cheerless ; he drank potations fathoms deep 
 not only straight and mixed, but interspersed 
 with reviving cocktails, compounded by a gifted 
 acquaintance from Denver, named Brewer. 
 
 Of course, this upset his weak and good- 
 natured head, until, finally, he reached a stage 
 where delirium tremens awaited complacently 
 the next bout. As usual, Brewer was unim- 
 paired for his capacity was large, and the dis- 
 cretion which confined him to one tipple, great ; 
 so, while Hoffman was dimly seeing the pre- 
 paratory angle worms, which would develop into 
 the conventional snakes, Brewer was as fresh as 
 the breezes fanning his native mountain-tops, and 
 as thirsty as the alkali plains lapping their foothills. 
 
 But Brewer had, as he boasted, " sand and 
 sense," so, corralling Hoffman, he dragged him 
 to the Russian Baths, and had him steamed, 
 rubbed, kneaded, scrubbed, and generally inun- 
 dated into a state of comparative sobriety. He 
 took his patient home, bribed the servant with a 
 napoleon to swear there was no more liquor in 
 the world, and left him to a sleep soothed by
 
 A QUEER LOT. JQ 
 
 bromide, and blessed with the expectancy of 
 awakening to a " Sure cure for Jim-jams in the 
 earlier stages" the prescription for which Brewer 
 had received from a friend, whose experience in 
 these matters personal and ancillary was the 
 most profound in Colorado. 
 
 With sobriety came the remembrances of his 
 lost Camille, and Hoffman rushed by the first 
 and fastest train to Normandy. He had often 
 listened to the pathetic story of her early life. 
 The happy village, the companions of her child- 
 hood, the green blithe with song and dance; 
 Basil, the inn-keeper, and Jacques, his son ; the 
 conscription, vows and tears ; and the parting 
 salute of the soldier as he stood in the sunset 
 on the hill and waved his last good-bye. Then 
 the tempter from the wood-embowered chateau 
 on the mountain; the ghost-haunted woodland 
 walks ; the little gift ; the gathering of wondering 
 peasants at Basils, and the short dispatch which 
 told how Jacques had died at Gravelotte, with 
 his face to the foe and a prayer for her. More 
 tears and more despair, followed by vows of love 
 which could never die;, the stern papa looking 
 down from the centuries of family portraits, and 
 the haughty mamma sheathed in satin, which 
 rang as the winds from the seas in the forests 
 of Barbesac. The flight; the deserted ingle-
 
 80 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 nook; the search; the moaning mamma, and 
 Paris. Desertion ; the heart aweary of life, hungry 
 for death; then Paradise, Hope, and Hoffman. 
 She told it all, as Watteau sketched, as Van Loo 
 painted, as Crebillon the Gay dreamed. 
 
 Our weeping Alsatian found the village of 
 Barbesac, and nobody who had ever heard of 
 Camille, except that, five years ago, she had 
 been at its castle with a gay party, whose eccen- 
 tricities had become a legend of Black Magic 
 in that peaceful land. Hoffman returned to 
 Paris, disconsolate, but not disenchanted, and 
 put the affair into the hands of a bureau of 
 private detectives. 
 
 " But these apprentices," Girard growled, with 
 professional jealousy, "these dolts so mismanaged 
 their trust, that last evening M. Hoffman was com- 
 pelled to seek the regular police." 
 
 The advertisements were immediately discon- 
 tinued, and through systematic search the woman 
 was traced from her pretty house in the Champs, 
 to a dingy cabaret in the dreariest cul-de-sac of 
 the Quartier Latin ; and there she disappeared as 
 if the earth had swallowed her, "and by to-mor- 
 row," groaned Girard, " those blockheads of the 
 private Bureaus, who are nearly as bad as our 
 imbeciles of the Police des Moeurs, will be stick- 
 ing their tongues in their cheeks at us."
 
 A QUEER LOT. g r 
 
 " When did this woman leave Hoffman ? " 
 asked Bentley. 
 
 "About six o'clock on the evening of the third." 
 
 " You say she went to a wine-shop south of 
 the river ; was this the Cabaret Duplan, at the 
 end of a mean little street, not far from the Bou- 
 levard 1'Hopital ? " 
 
 " I am not regularly on this duty, but let me 
 read the facts," responded Girard, with a sudden 
 alacrity, as he took out a shabby note-book, which 
 entombed the skeletons of more tragedies than 
 all the poets from Euripides to Shakespeare 
 have sung. 
 
 " Mais out yes ; the Cabaret Duplan, that is 
 right. Ah ! " he said, for Bentley in the narra- 
 tive, had told him nothing of this part of his 
 story ; " and so, M. le Colonel, you were the 
 foreigner of whom we could find no trace. You 
 left there soon after eight; you recall, perhaps, that 
 you spoke to a Sergeant de Ville, and then turned 
 toward the river. True it is all plain this 
 was the night of your adventure on the bridge ; 
 when you left him, the police officer walked down 
 the street, saw this woman in the cabaret, and 
 twenty moments later was called from his station 
 to stop a row in the Brasserie Au Petit Gamin. 
 When he returned to his post, the woman had 
 gone, and with her all our clues." 
 6
 
 82 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 " I spoke to the Sergeant, as you said, and it 
 must have been at the very time he was at the 
 Brasserie, that the woman the two women 
 came over the bridge." 
 
 " Could Camille Desmoulins have been one 
 of these, and if so, which ? " wondered Girard, 
 "Well, it is a clue, and I thank you in the 
 name of the Agency. But with your permission, 
 I will ask one more question, Was the woman 
 drinking when you saw her ? Yes ? Ah ! that 
 was her habit at times, and it made her crazy. 
 She poisoned a man once, we all believe, though 
 we could not prove the crime. She was mad for 
 a week, and they feared it would be the insane 
 asylum in the end. Alive or dead, let me tell 
 you this, Colonel Bentley, she was and is a 
 devil. She was a monster, none so bad in my 
 experience, and with the face of an angel ; and 
 those always are the most terrible." 
 
 Soon after noon a simple funeral crawled the 
 steep streets of Montmartre, and under the bright 
 sunshine of an unflecked sky Marion Darling- 
 ton was buried. When it was all over and 
 he waited until the very last Bentley walked 
 sadly out of the cemetery, and went, aimlessly, for 
 a long stroll to the hills and plains where the de- 
 fences of the city lay. 
 
 He returned at four o'clock and found that the
 
 A QUEER LOT. 83 
 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs had forwarded him, 
 through the Legation, the manuscript left by Mrs. 
 Darlington. At five o'clock Marsden appeared, 
 and after the first courtesies had passed, Bentley 
 said, pointing to the dead woman's letter, 
 
 " The story is now complete ; if you are ready, 
 we will go over this sad business together." 
 
 The perpetual impression of pain and discom- 
 fort which Marsden gave was intensified to-day. 
 He always saw fit to go out in search of misery, 
 and just now, was toying with a particularly 
 sombre Amaryllis, who was moaning in the 
 shade of a vault. In his present mood he 
 would have started in fairly, and relieved his 
 mind by saying something disagreeably per- 
 sonal ; but, fortunately, he had a wholesome re- 
 spect for Bentley, and resisted the craving. He 
 felt that this friend read him thoroughly, for with 
 all his pretence Marsden was shallow ; he was 
 narrowed to a stock of phrases, which were as 
 clear cut and deep as intaglios, but as these 
 seemed rare to the common and passed for ob- 
 jects of curiosity, he had obtained a fictitious 
 reputation for cleverness. That Bentley meas- 
 ured him accurately, he was certain, and therefore 
 his choice stings were saved for others who took 
 him at his own valuation. 
 
 He fumbled with the letters, shuffled his chair
 
 84 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 into the best light, and in an aggressive, irritable 
 way told of his first relations with Mrs. Darling- 
 ton. They all came through Philip Catlin. " This 
 fellow," he began, thumping the table with his 
 wrinkled forefinger, " who has made the trouble, 
 was, to my mind, a confounded cad. Yes, I know, 
 Bentley, he was your friend, and is dead, and 
 we ought to govern our feelings by a respect for 
 cheap mortuary philosophy, and all that, but I 
 must be honest, and, well, let us compromise 
 and say Catlin was a poor lot. We met him first 
 at Saint Augustine, some time early in let me 
 see," he counted his fingers, " '79, '78, '77. Yes, 
 some time about the New Year of 1877. 
 
 " I had a half acquaintance with him, and knew 
 vaguely that he had been badly caught in the Street 
 during the whirlwind of '73. However, here he 
 was in Florida instead of trying to earn a respect- 
 able living, in perfect health, and yet moving 
 about in a feeble, shiftless idleness that set my 
 teeth on edge. And then, confound it, he was 
 forever in the way, that is, in my way, so much 
 so, that he took all the comfort out of existence. 
 He would hang around for hours, doing nothing 
 but dreaming, always agreeing with me as he did 
 with every other shade of opinion, and always in 
 a feeble-minded way, which gave him the reputa- 
 tion of being ' so gentlemanly.'
 
 A QUEER LOT. g,j 
 
 " How do you suppose, my good friend Bent- 
 ley, how do you suppose it ended ? He wanted 
 to marry my daughter ! Fell in love with her, as 
 he was pleased to call it. I know you think I 
 am telling this in a coarse way, but it is the truth. 
 He was man enough to see me first, and to take 
 my emphatic refusal in a style that was not 
 undignified. The next day, to my infinite relief, 
 he went away, after announcing publicly that he 
 was going up the Ocklawaha on a second trip. 
 Fancy anybody who is, presumably, low in his 
 mind, making a second time that awful trip, and 
 in February, when Florida is black with the 
 hordes of wild Western tourists. 
 
 " My daughter took his departure quite as a mat- 
 ter of course, for she never suspected his feelings, 
 and I was delighted to see that she played tennis 
 in the Fort and went out in the cat-boats with as 
 much zest as ever. This did me a world of good, 
 for the truth is, Catlin had become a tremendous 
 nuisance." 
 
 Bentley listened with increasing annoyance, 
 for Marsden was telling a sad story brutally, and 
 was hard with the dead man for no other reason 
 than that he had ventured to love Isabel in a 
 manly straightforward way. He began to be- 
 lieve this battered old broker was without a heart, 
 and that he valued more how things looked, than
 
 86 * DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 what they meant, where they lead, or what useful 
 end to humanity their accomplishment might 
 serve. 
 
 But in this he misjudged Marsden. It is true 
 that this dissatisfied, selfish creature would have 
 said his prayers by proxy and thought himself 
 quits with Heaven for any benefit received, but 
 Isabel was his world, and in an irritable, though 
 a perfectly loyal way, he endeavored by unselfish 
 care to make amends for his neglect of her dead 
 mother. 
 
 In June of the same year the Marsdens sailed 
 for Europe. As nothing in the meantime had 
 been heard of Catlin, the irascible father's anger 
 and surprise were not without some reason when, 
 one afternoon, in the Champs Elysees, he beheld 
 the gentleman standing lazily within the barrier 
 rope of a mountebank, and watching with up- 
 roarious joy the woes of Polichinelle. 
 
 Catlin did not see them often at this season, 
 though he was zealous in the endeavor ; but when 
 they returned to Paris in October, he was soon 
 mooning around Isabel in the old fashion, while, 
 ostensibly, very busy collecting evidence for the 
 French Spoliation Claimants. 
 
 Marsden's treatment, even from his own ac- 
 count, must have been a delightful study in bliz- 
 zards, and Catlin's cheerful acceptance developed
 
 A QUEER LOT. 8/ 
 
 a latent torridity of temperament that was phe- 
 nomenal. 
 
 In January the Marsdens went to Nice, and later 
 to Pau, where they passed a delightful winter, and 
 when, in the spring, they returned to Paris, Cat- 
 lin was still there, though it was obvious he was 
 having a severe struggle with the Claims, and was 
 more or less down at heels, materially and phys- 
 ically. Marsden met him by chance one day, and 
 gave him a fishy hand in return for the effusive 
 warmth with which Catlin greeted him. He asked 
 delightedly after Miss Marsden, and, without the 
 slightest preface or pretence, said, as they sepa- 
 rated, 
 
 " You see I am not changed in the least, Mr. 
 Marsden ; I shall never change, and if persistency 
 will do it, I shall succeed in the end." 
 
 " Somebody told me Catlin had been drinking 
 more than was good for him," continued Mars- 
 den; "but I do not believe this was true. I 
 noticed a certain unsteadiness, a want of method, 
 a wildness, as if he were being pursued by a 
 terrible fate he could not escape, but no signs 
 of dissipation. Though he did not go about 
 much, some old friends of his mother asked him 
 at times to their parties, and we occasionally saw 
 him. 
 
 "After returning from our rambles last summer,
 
 88 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 we met him again. His manner had entirely 
 changed, and there was no longer a question that 
 he was in sore straits ; it was evident, too, he had 
 taken to dissipation in some form. 
 
 "I pitied him, 'pon my soul I did, Bentley, and 
 when, after putting myself to considerable incon- 
 venience by interfering in an affair which did 
 not affect me, I offered to make definite arrange- 
 ments for his return home, he ungratefully and 
 most impertinently said, 
 
 " ' Thank you, no. I am here for a purpose 
 which you understand ; and it is, after all, simply 
 a question between my devotion and your ob- 
 stinacy, I mean your objections. I am satisfied 
 that when your daughter learns how truly and 
 unselfishly, in the midst of horrible sufferings and 
 self-denials you cannot measure, I have cared for 
 her, she will pity me ; this, by association, I hope, 
 and I am willing to take my chances, will ripen 
 into a stronger feeling.' 
 
 " I could have kicked him for his cool impu- 
 dence, but, Bentley, there was something in his 
 manner which made me respect him then more 
 than ever before. 
 
 " I never saw him again. In January we went 
 to Nice, and the day after my arrival I received 
 this letter, which had followed me for two 
 months."
 
 A QUEER LOT. 89 
 
 He took up the letter marked No. I, and read 
 it slowly, 
 
 " 126 Baltimore St., Philadelphia, Penn. 
 
 " November 2d, 1878. 
 
 " DEAR SIR : The unaccountable disappearance of Philip 
 Catlin has awakened so much serious anxiety that I am induced 
 to ask you, as being in the best position to know, if you will 
 send the latest news in your possession to the above address, and 
 oblige, " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " MARION DARLINGTON." 
 
 This was in the same handwriting as the note 
 received by Bentley on the second of April. 
 
 " I answered this," resumed Marsden, " and, as 
 I thought under the circumstances, with great 
 civility. We had not seen Catlin since October, 
 and I put this as clearly as I knew how, but with 
 so little success, that three weeks afterward I was 
 forwarded, by my bankers in Paris, the letter, 
 which is marked No. 2, 
 
 " PARIS, January 28th, 1879. 
 
 " SIR : Philip Catlin is currently reported to be betrothed to your 
 daughter ; some say, they are secretly married. I do not believe 
 either report, for he is incapable of an act so dastardly, of a want 
 of faith so dishonorable to us both. But I have also learned that 
 if there be the slightest truth in these charges, the reasons for the 
 secrecy lie with you. 
 
 " I have endeavored to find him everywhere, but in vain. He 
 is poor and powerless. To disappear, save by death, one must be
 
 9 o 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 neither ; and I can not resist the belief that you are primarily 
 accountable for his absence, and this in your daughter's behalf. 
 
 " You have money, friends and influence ; I am poor, alone 
 and powerless. You must find him or take the consequences, for 
 the burden of my sorrow is too great to bear without hope. You 
 can give me peace ; I can bring you trouble. If I were not des- 
 perate I would prefer the former ; as it is, I am careless as to the 
 issue. 
 
 " You may, in a calm philosophy of bloodless scorn, call me 
 melodramatic and turn me over to the police. But you dare not, 
 and, I warn you, not as a threat, but as a light to guide you, that 
 I have sworn Philip Catlin's fate shall be your daughter's." 
 
 " I know that this is hardly the way to approach a man of the 
 world, nor would I do so save for my sore trouble and for the 
 knowledge that behind the machine lies the father. I have not 
 reached your pity, but I can and shall, through her, reach your 
 fear. Not only by her present ignorance, but by the faintly re- 
 membered griefs of her childhood, when you killed, as surely as 
 man ever murdered, your wife and her mother, not by blows, but 
 by sugar-coated horrors. 
 
 " It is your association with that mother, who is a dream to 
 her, which sanctifies you ; it is your necessity for that association 
 which arms me." 
 
 " Shall it be peace or war ? I am not stalking as a tragedy 
 queen, nor do I ask a favor. I am a wronged woman, and it is 
 my right, as the affianced wife of Philip Catlin, to demand this 
 relief." 
 
 " MARION DARLINGTON, 
 "Henry Marsden, Esq., "26 Rue St. Pierre, 
 
 " Rue Scribe, " near the Boulevard Beaumarchais. 
 
 " Paris." 
 
 Although Bentley knew these letters by heart, 
 he thought it best Marsden should tell the story
 
 A QUEER LOT. pj 
 
 in his own way. But at this point he doubted 
 the wisdom of his judgment, for the spell of the 
 mad creature's threats, now so impotent and 
 averted, still enchained Marsden with a power 
 which displayed itself in an emotion that over- 
 mastered him. 
 
 Then, too, he realized he had done Marsden 
 a wrong, and that this mass of concentrated sel- 
 fishness loved his daughter with an intensity which 
 was undoubted, even though its strength was 
 drawn from the expiation owed to his past. In 
 those days of recklessness it had been a pet 
 aphorism of Marsden that the land of marriage 
 was one which foreigners would invade and na- 
 tives fain escape ; and in the practices which he 
 essayed he tried to still the self-reproaches for 
 his escapes by the successes of his invasions. So 
 when after years of a devotion which was as 
 beautiful as it was unrequited, his martyred wife 
 died, Marsden learned with a sudden affright and 
 an awful regret how much this uncomplaining 
 woman had been in his life. 
 
 In the spring time, after the first wooing was 
 over, he had idly pursued the selfish desires of his 
 days so long, that the summer died untimely, and 
 there was for him no leaf, nor grass, nor sheaf; 
 and when the fruitless autumn faded in the win- 
 ter's snow, he turned, in his season of despair,
 
 2 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 with a wild repentance to the girl who had been 
 the heaven of the mother lying dead. 
 
 Happy for him was it when love, in the anguish 
 of neglected opportunities, dreamed of a second 
 harvest, happy, indeed, that such a flower of 
 beauty and of truth awaited, and not the stubble 
 and the wasted grain, and the barren fields, which 
 never would bloom as of old. 
 
 Let it be said that the prayers he made in 
 those afterdays for both were holy ones, and that 
 the promises he offered in expiation were kept 
 with a hard, unyielding affection, if you please, and 
 with selfishness but still with a love, which, in a 
 blind way, impelled him to do his duty by his child. 
 
 It was true, also, that Catlin's poverty had not 
 counted against him, for, as Marsden had sworn 
 that death alone should separate father and 
 daughter, he used fondly to say that a poor man 
 was surer held than one who was rich. But, 
 apart from the fact that he did not want his 
 daughter to marry, Catlin's weakness excited 
 a personal antagonism which he could not 
 overcome; and he feared, in trying to gain 
 his point, that Catlin, who knew the story of 
 his second marriage, might not scruple to dis- 
 illusion Isabel. He did not stop to consider the 
 folly of any such belief: he simply accepted it 
 as a possibility, and let it rule him.
 
 A QUEER LOT. 93 
 
 "I confess, Bentley," he resumed, when the 
 strength of his emotion had subsided, " I was 
 afraid of this devil, mainly for my daughter's sake. 
 You know our world, our metier, our opportuni- 
 ties, our ideals, our temptations. In the past, I 
 was as other men, who are deficient on the side 
 of sentiment, and I acted thoughtlessly perhaps, 
 worse to the sweetest and most forgiving woman 
 who ever lived. But," he explained, as if trying 
 to justify his sins by impeaching the race, and 
 specially including Bentley, "we look upon these 
 things so differently from women." 
 
 It was evident he was groping for words 
 wherewith to soften his confession ; but these did 
 not come easily and proved that it was only the 
 necessity of making his actions plain which could 
 have moved him to disclose his weaknesses, even 
 to a person whom he respected and liked as much 
 as he did Bentley. 
 
 " In short, I feel now I might have done dif- 
 ferently; not that I have been a rogue or a 
 scoundrel, but, in my life, there have been 
 events, which, if revealed to my daughter as 
 simple, statistical moral facts, without the color, 
 the light, the apology of the circumstances which 
 dominated, and gave them a raison d'etre, why, 
 I fear she would hate and leave me for the 
 first adventurer, who posed as an elementally
 
 04 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 proper person, possessing the merits I never could 
 have known. 
 
 " I sent Miss Darlington a note, which, as I 
 hoped, smilingly put the question by; but she 
 never answered it. This alarmed me, and I seized 
 upon the pretext of my illness to write another 
 in which I blustered a little, and rapped up a 
 fictitious policeman. Her only reply to this was 
 a telegram, which read ' Find Philip Catlin for 
 me! 
 
 " Her determination seemed so fixed that I 
 employed an Agent of the Surete, who brought 
 the best recommendations from the Central Bu- 
 reau. On the fifth of March, I came into posses- 
 sion of the letter which is marked No. 3. It was 
 addressed to my daughter, and was sent by a mes- 
 senger, whom, fortunately, the detective intercepted 
 at the office of the hotel. The address on the en- 
 velope was so cramped and unnatural, that the 
 more I studied, the better I became satisfied it 
 was in a disguised hand. I kept it two days, 
 and, after weighing all the arguments, felt it 
 was my duty to open it. Thank God, I did ! 
 for, as I had suspected, it was written by that 
 fiend." 
 
 This letter, unlike the others, was put aside by 
 Marsden, though it was needed to complete the 
 missing links of the story, and ran as follows :
 
 A QUEER LOT. 95 
 
 " TOULON, France. 
 "March 5, 1879. 
 
 " I have come from the death-bed of the man you have mur- 
 dered ; to-morrow I shall see him buried where only strangers 
 sleep. Philip Catlm the truest, bravest, and brightest soul in 
 the world died by your hands, a felon in the Toulon jail. It is 
 true, he killed himself, but this was in remorse for his desertion 
 of me, and because the degradation to which you sent him 
 could be endured no longer. As he died, I shall try to make 
 you die ; not to-day, perhaps, nor to-morrow, but some day, 
 and, if it can be amid horrors more dreadful than those which 
 surrounded him. 
 
 "As you tried to win his love from me, I shall take from you 
 in my own way and time the love that is most to you. I 
 send you this prophecy from the dead past of my ruined life. I 
 consecrate my oath by the touch of the flowers I shall throw in 
 his nameless grave to-morrow. 
 
 " With every prayer I make for him, I ask an evil for you, and 
 with the shadow of his death still clinging to my lips, I dedicate 
 your days to the anguish mine have known ; I pray every moment 
 of them may be cursed with grief, and hunger, and pain. I pray 
 that the death, which you fear, will be about you, ready to strike 
 in the moment when it will be most awful, and, that the death 
 you beg for, will wait and wait before it comes until you 
 know, as I have known, the maddening terrors of hell. 
 
 "MARION DARLINGTON." 
 
 " That night," Marsden continued, " I went to 
 Marseilles, and, by the tenth, I was in Algiers, 
 living in a quiet villa, near the gardens of the Bab 
 el Oued. But I could find no rest. Whether 
 Catlin was dead or not, this woman was insane, 
 and I knew not at what moment she might wreak
 
 96 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 the vengeance she had invoked. At last, in an 
 agony of terror, I determined to come here, to 
 consult you, to undergo any sacrifices which would 
 placate her. Her death made all this useless, 
 though there are revenges which are as sure to 
 the dead as to the living, and, in some mad way 
 yet to be revealed she may have left a legacy 
 of hate to finish the misery she began in life." 
 
 When Marsden brought his narrative to an 
 end, Bentley broke the seal of the manuscript 
 found in Mrs. Darlington's room, and said, 
 
 " Since your share, sir, in the mystery of this 
 woman's life and death is greater than mine, I 
 have kept her last message until you came. 
 Are you ready to hear it ? " 
 
 Marsden made a gesture of assent, and Bentley 
 read slowly as follows : 
 
 "TO COLONEL CLIFFORD BENTLEY. 
 
 "Paris, April jd, 1879. 
 
 " This night I go to my death, for all I love, 
 even my revenge, so far as it would make me 
 live, is dead. I have struggled for a month in 
 vain. Morning and evening, day and night, I 
 have heard a voice whispering ' Come, now is 
 the time leave behind all this come ; ' and I
 
 A QUEER LOT. 97 
 
 can no longer resist its pleading. I make. you 
 the heir of my wrongs, and I am driven to kill 
 myself, because of the woman whose life is mixed 
 with his, with yours, with mine, even to the end 
 and for their evil. She is Fate. Catlin could not 
 escape her, nor I can you ? She is beautiful, 
 but it is the beauty of the devil which is given to 
 kill, not the body alone, but the soul. She has 
 killed mine, she has killed the man who loved 
 you so dearly she will kill you. 
 
 " Philip Catlin was my affianced husband the 
 only human being in all this world who ever gave 
 me a loving word or touched my hand in tender- 
 ness ; for since my earliest years I have been an 
 orphan, without a memory even of the mother 
 who might have straightened my warped life, of 
 the father who is said to have left us both to die 
 unheeded. But I needed nothing, hungry as I 
 was for human sympathy and love, after Philip 
 came into my life. It was a brief dream, and she 
 awakened me. 
 
 " He followed her to Europe, as one demented, 
 and to be near her, struggled and starved. She 
 was the lure light, he the foolish moth. But hers 
 was the light of a wicked spell, and his the trial 
 through which all true love must go, for he loved 
 me best, and only me. When this woman left 
 Paris, she cheered him with promises of her re- 
 7
 
 pg A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 turn, and to be near her he lived in the most 
 abject poverty and underwent sacrifices which 
 broke him down in mind and body. 
 
 " Then you met her, and it was Philip's bitter 
 grief to learn that his best loved and oldest friend 
 was the rival who complicated the struggle. Can 
 you imagine the strength of my love when I tell 
 you that I, who had risked and lost all, would 
 have welcomed gladly their marriage to have 
 saved him. For he would have tired of her, and, 
 if not, I could, at least, have killed her. But no ; 
 with a refinement of cruelty called pity, she would 
 neither let him go nor stay, and in a moment 
 of madness, he determined to follow her to the 
 South. 
 
 " He was more fit for the Hospital and the ten- 
 der care of those who loved him than for such a 
 journey. Before he reached Lyons, he was robbed 
 while asleep in the crowded car, and awoke to 
 find himself at the station alone and penniless. 
 For two days, up and down, up and down, through 
 the streets of that prosperous city, he walked, seek- 
 ing the thief, and starving. 
 
 " He had ten sous left. 
 
 " Five of these he gave to a beggar who be- 
 seeched alms in the name of God's mother, and 
 following this cripple he saw the money spent, 
 in the nearest shop, for brandy. He struggled
 
 A QUEER LOT. ^ 
 
 and starved another day, sleeping in the rain 
 and mire, and always hearing a voice which 
 opened a way for escape. He went to the agents 
 of the large American silk houses, and told his 
 story, in one case to a countryman, but all 
 spurned him, he who had been a soldier, and was 
 a gentleman. 
 
 " He spent two of his five sous, not for bread, 
 as that hunger was gone, but for brandy; and the 
 fierceness of desire growing upon him, the rest 
 of his pennies followed. Then he became de- 
 mented as irresponsible as the child, as the mad- 
 man whom all excuse. He heard the voice still 
 calling it seemed always the same: 'Come to 
 me,' it sang, 'and elysium.' How do I know 
 these things ? He wrote them to me in the letter 
 which I burned. You will find its ashes, choking 
 the stove in my room, when I am dead. 
 
 " After this came madness. 
 
 " The police charge him with having violently 
 seized at noon, in broad sunlight, and on the most 
 crowded street of Lyons, a bank messenger who 
 was carrying money to be deposited. Philip, in his 
 delirium, asked the man to deliver one of the bags 
 peacefully as a loan which would enable him to 
 reach Nice to follow her. Instead of pitying 
 him, as one would a child reaching for the moon, 
 the brute struck him. A struggle followed, such
 
 I00 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 a short, such an easy one, and it was called he- 
 roic by these miserable Frenchmen. They ar- 
 rested, tried and convicted Philip, surely and 
 speedily, for he made no defence, and these things 
 are ordered by a machinery which in France never 
 fails for foreigners. 
 
 " When in the cool, quiet jail, under the pitying 
 hands of the Sisters, he came back to life, he ac- 
 cepted his fate without a protest. His sentence 
 was imprisonment at hard labor for ten years, at 
 home, as they tried to call it, and not in Cayenne. 
 While we were searching, and when Marsden's 
 stolen money could have found and saved him, 
 he was praying for death amid the nameless, 
 relentless cruelties of a common jail. He failed 
 day by day, almost hour by hour, they told me, 
 from the very beginning, though they were as 
 good the naval surgeons as the civil rules 
 allowed. 
 
 " Finally he died. 
 
 " Just before the end, his reason returned, and 
 he thought of me, and wrote what I am entering 
 here for you, our avenger. He told me all, how 
 he had been spurned like a rabid dog by the 
 father, and how he felt that he must make one 
 last effort or die. He asked my pardon for the 
 past, my pity for the present, my prayers for the 
 future, for his misery could be endured no longer,
 
 A QUEER LOT. IO i 
 
 and he had the means a common enough poi- 
 son of killing himself. 
 
 " It was his last good-bye to the world, and of 
 all created things to whom did he send it to 
 her ? No ! To me ? Yes ! for he loved me. It 
 was my first clue, and though I did not dare tele- 
 graph the authorities, lest a punishment might be 
 inflicted upon Philip, I determined to save him. 
 
 " I went to Toulon at once, and having gained 
 admission to the prison, reached him, my Philip, 
 reached him in time to rescue, to ease a single 
 pain ? No to see him die ! 
 
 " And this was all, all after the years of patient 
 love and waiting. 
 
 " At first I determined to bide my chance and 
 kill her who had brought these evil days upon 
 us, but that desire is gone now, and you, not I, 
 must be the agent of the vengeful Fate in whom 
 I believe. I leave her to a worse death than I 
 can give, to your contempt, to your knowledge 
 of what she is. 
 
 " I know she will die as he did, and if spirits can 
 return, I shall be with her. And you, will you 
 love a murderer? Will you deny that behind 
 the mask of the angel is the face of the devil ? 
 Will you be led as he was, differently in way, but 
 no less surely, to the -same end ? 
 
 " The night is coming, and my last message on
 
 I0 2 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 earth is for you. I leave it in this room which 
 has known my grief, lest my strength should fail 
 on the bridge, where I shall seal the truth of 
 what I try to tell you, with my life. If you are 
 not there, take these as the last words of a woman 
 who will be dead when you read them. Do not 
 pity me, I am beyond the need of that, but be 
 warned by 
 
 "MARION DARLINGTON." 
 
 Bentley read steadily to the end, and when he 
 looked up, saw that Marsden was watching him 
 intently. 
 
 " Do you believe her ? " 
 
 " I pity her. She was insane ! But what un- 
 told evil she could have wrought. Thank God, 
 I never met her." 
 
 "But, do you believe her?" insisted Marsden. 
 
 " I believe she loved Catlin with a strength 
 which turned her brain after he rejected her. 
 Hers was a sad life, I fancy, with it all, and I 
 doubt if she ever had the even start that we, 
 and most of us, were given. I blame and pity 
 her." 
 
 " What will you do with these papers ? " asked 
 Marsden, who avoided the subject when it reached 
 a stage of defence. " Surely no one else should 
 read them."
 
 A QUEER LOT. IC >3 
 
 "Only one other Catlin's sister. Her right 
 is the greatest of all," exclaimed Bentley. 
 
 Marsden walked up and down the room, went 
 to the window, nervously lighted a cigar, smoked 
 fiercely for a moment, as if trying to quiet his 
 emotion or to arrive at a decision ; and, not look- 
 ing at Bentley, finally said, 
 
 "Tell me, is this dead woman as insane, in 
 speaking of the revenge she leaves to you, as she 
 is in all other things ? " 
 
 " Do you mean by that do you intend to ask 
 if I love your daughter? " answered Bentley, qui- 
 etly. " Yes, thank God, that knowledge of higher 
 things is mine, however vain my love may be. Let 
 me tell you. Not to you is it so great a surprise to 
 learn this, as it would be to your daughter. You 
 will say, pardon me," he added, with a courteous 
 gesture, as Marsden was about to interrupt, 
 "you will say, and justly, that I have seen so 
 little of her. But it is not always that, and I only 
 know my feelings are as I have told you." 
 
 It was a profanation for Bentley to reveal this 
 secret of his life, even to Marsden ; but he could 
 not escape the duty it had become. " She, of 
 course," he continued, " will never suspect nor 
 know it from me ; for I realize too well the use- 
 lessness and unfitness of my life and character, to 
 harm her even by the thought that I could aspire
 
 104 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 to the heights whereon she lives. I know my 
 own unworthiness in every way. But this I can 
 do. Some day you may think she needs my help. 
 Circumstances may be such about you that I may 
 be of use. Send for me, and I will come." 
 
 Marsden offered a trembling hand and said, 
 " I am sorry to hear this but I thank you for 
 the confidence you show in me and it shall be 
 as you wish. If she ever needs you, I shall send 
 for you, Bentley, yes, I promise, before any one 
 else in this world." 
 
 When the white-faced and unnerved worldling 
 departed, Bentley sat in the dusk and deepening 
 twilight, thinking of many things, but always as 
 they centred about Isabel Marsden. Into the 
 falling night he lingered in thoughtful dreaming, 
 and did not mark the darkness nor the gloom, for 
 the happiness of loving was upon him, and his 
 heart, which had spoken at last, stole from his 
 love a light that illumed the night. 
 
 Hitherto his days had lacked scope and pur- 
 pose, and though he had liked many women with 
 a sincerity and faith none ever gauged, still this 
 affection had never been fanned into a steadier or a 
 stronger flame. It was always his misfortune not 
 to accept but to analyze, and at last he taught 
 himself, despairingly, to believe that the love of 
 woman was not for him.
 
 A QUEER LOT. IO 5 
 
 Yet love awaited him, as for all at every age 
 and under every trial, though most she blesses 
 those who seek her in the perfect flower and hey- 
 day of unthinking youth. And who will blame 
 if she gives most bountifully to the faith which 
 never questions nor falters when for age as well 
 as youth she waits ? For love is ever glad of the 
 suing and never wearied, even if hailed in despair 
 from the fogs and mists of the years, where the 
 pilotless ship, beaten by gale and rusty with sea, 
 gropes in the twilight for the port it might have 
 found when winds blew fair and sunrise gladdened 
 the adventurous voyage of life. 
 
 Bentley felt this truth now, and saw how his 
 wasted years had lived under the sky and 
 known no stars, had loitered by the shore and 
 heard no message from the sea. But the blind- 
 ness was gone, and his world to-night was a 
 symphony of faith and trust. He felt the fires 
 of summer in his blood, and as the empurpling 
 shadows enfolded him, he cried, exultingly, 
 
 " I will love her forever and forever, in this 
 world and in the worlds to be."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GIBRALTAR. 
 
 WHEN Marsden left Paris in May, he was 
 so ill that the doctors advised him to defer 
 his departure for America until the autumn. He 
 protested vehemently, but, as his own physicians 
 said that he was taking a risk which nothing would 
 justify, he grumblingly consented to obey. 
 
 He went to England, and, early in July, Bent- 
 ley, who had postponed his trip to India, joined 
 them. It gave Marsden a great deal of satisfac- 
 tion to find that the Colonel had not as he 
 phrased it " deserted his colors," for it was a 
 part of the contradictions in the cynical old 
 man's nature to have a larger faith and a deeper 
 trust when he learned how earnestly Bentley 
 cared for Isabel. And, though his belief was 
 perfect only in himself, still he gave to Bentley 
 as large a measure of confidence as his warped 
 soul could offer, and, during these days of de- 
 pressed idleness, as his opinions slowly slipped 
 from the shores of old ideals, and left bare the 
 106
 
 GIBRALTAR. 
 
 shallows of ancient fancies, he confessed, peni- 
 tently, the wrong he did in separating two lives 
 so surely meant for each other. Finally, there 
 came a time when he hoped that all being over 
 with him Isabel might learn to love this man of 
 truth and honest purpose. 
 
 In July, Marsden and Isabel went to the Isle of 
 Wight, and, though his health improved with the 
 change of scene, and the new interests which tem- 
 porarily buoyed him, it became certain that his 
 trouble was too seriously organic not to make the 
 future one which would demand as the price of 
 living unceasing care, and the absence of all 
 shocks. It was not that his ailments were alto- 
 gether physical, for the wounds seemed to be 
 deeper than skill could diagnose, and, although 
 he never confessed it, he was struggling with 
 mental troubles, haunted by ghosts of his past, 
 which would not, in his impaired bodily con- 
 dition, yield to any treatment. 
 
 This illness and worry made him a fretful and 
 difficult patient to manage. He had been so suc- 
 cessful, hitherto, in his dealings with men and 
 affairs, his brute persistency had so easily over- 
 mastered in the struggles wherein he engaged, 
 that he was unwilling to acknowledge the weak 
 spots in his armor. His peculiarities became in- 
 tensified, and in opposing to his misfortunes what
 
 I0 g A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 he believed to be, and called, the courage of a strong 
 will, he arrayed against himself, by an arrogant 
 irritation which was a form of dementia, many of 
 his acquaintances and friends. 
 
 He soon grew tired of the Isle of Wight, and 
 one day, while sore from a fancied slight, said 
 to Commodore Percival, who had come to Europe 
 for a holiday in the Black Forest, and never could 
 tear himself from the sea shore, 
 
 " Confound these doctors ! They are all char- 
 latans, and are simply seeking the nimble guinea 
 of the Yankee victim. I am sure they don't 
 know my case." 
 
 " Why don't you change them ? " growled 
 Percival. " There is no law which requires an 
 amiable patient to stick out his tongue and pre- 
 sent his pulse to any particular sawbones who 
 bids him stand and deliver." 
 
 " That's all well enough for you," replied Mars- 
 den, "with your savage good health, but I must 
 go to them. That's a part of my trouble. Now, 
 look here, Percival, what have I done to de- 
 serve all this ? Why am I cursed in this way ? " 
 
 " You would not be happy in Paradise, Mars- 
 den," returned the Commodore, " nor if you had 
 cabin duff every day for a month. You have 
 been too long on shore, and what you need is a 
 long sea voyage, with fresh air, nothing to worry
 
 GIBRALTAR. 
 
 you, plenty of exercise, and fo'k's'le grub." Per- 
 cival would have prescribed the same treatment 
 for a broken arm. " Why don't you get out of 
 this," he continued, hoping that this last sugges- 
 tion, if not the remedy, would be accepted, as 
 for ten days Marsden had been boring him 
 dreadfully. 
 
 " Get out of this," repeated Marsden : " why 
 should I. The place " he had loathed it five 
 minutes since " gives me, in some degree, what 
 I want. Not that my needs are great, for my 
 philosophy of living is a simple one : sunlight, 
 a good dinner, sound wine, a comfortable bed, 
 and the right to regulate my own affairs." 
 
 This conversation took place in the club-house, 
 where both had been put up by the expansive 
 hospitality of a member, who was, for a wonder, 
 trying to return some of the courtesies he had 
 received in America. 
 
 Though it was only eleven o'clock in the 
 morning, Percifal had already made it seven 
 bells, and reporting the sun over the foreyard, 
 was regaling himself with a brandy and soda, 
 "just to sweeten his bilges," he roared across 
 the room to a retired British Rear-Admiral, who 
 looked on envyingly at the feast which his doctors 
 denied. 
 
 For a week the Commodore had been sailing
 
 no 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 with his lee guns under water, waiting for a good 
 chance to "bring up with a round turn that ag- 
 gravating, money-grubbing, sour-faced grumbler, 
 Marsden." In the audacity of the alcohol, which 
 made him red and uncomfortable, this chance 
 was discovered now, and, without any prelimi- 
 naries, he exclaimed, brusquely, 
 
 " See here, Marsden, I have known you since 
 '48 or '49, when I was on the Pacific slope, 
 thirty years and better, and you have always 
 been the same. I suppose you would get angry 
 if I hinted that you were a society of organized 
 selfishness, so I won't; but you are, all the 
 same." 
 
 " Commodore Percival," replied Marsden, with 
 a face puffed out like a cream cake, " even our 
 long acquaintance and the well-known, but inde- 
 fensible bluntness, not to say coarseness, of your 
 profession, will hardly " 
 
 "Will hardly what?" interrupted Percival. 
 "Will hardly justify me of course they won't, 
 but I do not need the justification and you do. 
 I want to give an old sailor's advice, and I mean 
 it kindly. Do you know everybody is growling 
 at you, and as we would like to stick by our 
 countryman against these constitutional grum- 
 blers over here, we are disheartened because you 
 won't give us a peg upon which to hang an ex-
 
 GIBRAL TAR. ! j t 
 
 cuse. Why don't you try the other tack ? Take 
 heart of grace ; bear up, man ; don't you see you 
 are killing that sweet lass who gets double rations 
 of the sort of talk you serve out so liberally to 
 everybody else. Hear an old friend's advice;" 
 Percival softened when he found what a poor foe 
 Marsden made after the first broadside had been 
 poured in "run up to London; put these Lime- 
 juice doctors in quarantine and consult Jack Dai- 
 ton. He is Fleet Surgeon now, and a capital fellow, 
 with a heart as big as a Frigate's main topsail 
 and a head loaded chock to the muzzle with 
 sense and science. He knows more of human 
 nature and medicine combined than any other 
 medico who ever rammed a bolus down my 
 throat, and that is because he's a sailor, every 
 inch of him, as well as a doctor. Here's my card, 
 Marsden, and if he don't honor it, by telling you 
 the truth, why Jack Dalton is changed and I'll 
 eat my last commission. But you will have to 
 hurry ; he has only ten days' leave, and if you 
 miss him I will cheerfully act as your executor." 
 
 Marsden's dignity was hurt. He strode home- 
 ward with flaming cheeks, and for days told 
 everybody that of all coarse brutes the sea speci- 
 men was the worst. But he took Percival's ad- 
 vice and went to London. 
 
 Dalton, who was a prince among men, the
 
 II2 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 cheeriest of companions, the tenderest-hearted of 
 doctors, the most loyal of friends, received Mars- 
 den with such a welcome that some of his own 
 sunshine crept into and brightened the dark spots 
 of the invalid's mind. 
 
 He listened patiently and agreed, as these 
 physicians always do in their pathological free 
 masonry, with the diagnosis of the other doc- 
 tors. But his remedy was different, for he ad- 
 vised his patient to go home immediately in a 
 sailing vessel and by way of the Southern passage. 
 He gave specific directions about diet and hygiene, 
 told just what wind and weather, and what health- 
 giving properties of rest and tone, might be ex- 
 pected at this season, and altogether infused so 
 much spirit, that the grumbling invalid began the 
 next day to make inquiries for a suitable vessel. 
 
 Upon his return to Cowes, Marsden was so 
 elated with the possibilities of a cure, and so gar- 
 rulous and prophetic about the future, that Isabel 
 absorbed a renewal of the courage which had 
 almost deserted her. 
 
 She had lost something of the bloom stolen in 
 the early spring, though this only accentuated the 
 purity and spirituality of her beauty. She was 
 depressed by her father's illness", and tried in 
 many ways, not by his positive treatment of her, 
 but by the negative sorrows which came from
 
 GIBRALTAR. 
 
 his strained relations with the people about him. 
 She had never been consulted about this voyage, 
 and had opposed no objection to what she be- 
 lieved to be the idea of a mind disturbed by an 
 illness which made abnormal things look natural; 
 but when her father returned with the sunshine 
 of Dalton's optimism running riotously in his 
 blood, she accepted its possibility as a blessing. 
 
 So she was much pleased, one day while look- 
 ing from the pier at the yawls and cutters fretting 
 at their anchorages, to see her father meet his old 
 friend Bradbury, of the firm of Bradbury & Wins- 
 low, ship owners, formerly of Salem, and now of 
 South Street, New York. The change in Mars- 
 den shocked Bradbury, and when the question of 
 his ailments arose, as it always did with great 
 promptness, Isabel was delighted to hear the 
 merchant say, 
 
 " Dr. Dalton is right, and Marsden, I have a 
 remedy. Do you remember the Halcyon ? No? 
 Well, you should, as you own a piece in her. 
 Just now she is loading at Genoa, and ought to 
 be in the Straits, homeward bound, about the 
 middle of August. What do you say? Run 
 down to Gibraltar; I will telegraph Captain 
 Waite to put in there, and if you are ready for 
 the voyage, go on board ; if not, the trip will have 
 done you no harm, and the detention of the ship 
 8
 
 U4 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 can, at this season of the year, make no possible 
 difference." 
 
 Marsden growled a surly thanks, which implied 
 an off-hand refusal, but when subsequently he 
 learned that the Halcyon was a fine ship, half- 
 clipper built, with a large cabin, and a master 
 whose reputation was excellent, he accepted the 
 offer. They went to London, and to settle defi- 
 nitely his intentions, passage was engaged on 
 board the P. & O. steamer Trafalgar, which was 
 to sail on the 8th of August. 
 
 Bentley was in London, and on the day ap- 
 pointed, accompanied them to Southampton. 
 He presented to the superintendent of the fleet, 
 and to the captain of the Trafalgar, the letters 
 given him by old Admiral Leighton, the chair- 
 man of the company, and then saw his com- 
 panions safely on board ship. 
 
 For days this parting had hung over him as an 
 impending calamity, and he waited in a nervous 
 anxiety, and with a distrust of himself, to speak 
 his farewells. But, by the time the ringing bells 
 and the rasping voices of the stewards told him 
 the parting hour had come, he had brought him- 
 self to such a point of self-control, that his good- 
 byes to Isabel were as calm as if he was to meet 
 her on the morrow. 
 
 As Marsden walked forward with him, he was
 
 GIBRALTAR. uj 
 
 very quiet, but when the gangway was reached, he 
 said : " Well, I suppose this is the end of it ; so a 
 pleasant voyage and good-bye." After waiting a 
 moment, he added, looking aft, where she sat 
 watching them : " God bless her, and remember, 
 if I am ever needed, send for me." 
 
 The lines were slackened, the rushing steam 
 was checked, and, as Bentley went to the pier- 
 end, and with bared head, stood among the 
 group waving farewells, the ship steamed slowly 
 out of the dock, amid the cheers which rang with 
 sobs for echoes. Fainter and fainter, the Trafalgar 
 grew, first a blurred mass in motion, next a curl of 
 wreathing smoke, now a mist to leeward, and then 
 nothing. Nothing but the memory of pale faces 
 and of glad ones, of ringing cheers and waving 
 hands, of tear-choked voices, and of blue waters, 
 changing to the gold and ruby of summer twi- 
 light. But Bentley saw none of these, and for 
 him there was the remembrance only of the wist- 
 ful face of his dear love, looking upon the land 
 with longings never felt before. Would she have 
 been happier had she known of the heart wearied 
 with hopeless love going back that night to Lon- 
 don's care and trouble ? 
 
 The voyage of the Trafalgar was uneventful ; 
 there was a breezy night off the Needles, a disa-
 
 H6 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 greeable sea and half-gale to Finisterre, and such 
 smooth water and favoring winds in the Bay of 
 Biscay, and along the Portuguese coast, that Gib- 
 raltar was reached early on the fifth day. 
 
 Marsden was an excellent shipmate, and came 
 out brilliantly in a new light, as the hearty, but 
 reckless sailor. The impression made was so 
 good, that he began to believe he was, after all, 
 a capital, hitherto-misunderstood fellow, with a 
 positive genius for concocting all sorts of impos- 
 sibly-named American drinks, and a sublime pa- 
 tience for cutting in with the worst whist players 
 in the ship. He sat at the captain's table, capped 
 oracle with oracle, received a flattering atten- 
 tion from the younger men, though this last 
 was mainly because of Isabel, and was the um- 
 pire of every game, from shuffle-board to 
 Twenty Questions, which the uneasy spirits of 
 the ship evolved. By the time the Trafalgar 
 reached " Gib," as the subalterns called it, he 
 had made a half-dozen agreeable acquaintances, 
 among them an American named Lorrimore, 
 who, after idling away his vacation in England, 
 was now bound for the Rock, in the hope of 
 catching one of the Italian steamers which touch 
 at Gibraltar, en route to New York. 
 
 Lorrimore had presented himself on the sec- 
 ond day out, by recalling a previous meeting in
 
 GIBRAL TAR. 
 
 117 
 
 England, and, though Marsden did not remem- 
 ber this, he accepted the fact much as a prince 
 might receive a foreigner, who had done him a 
 knightly deed upon a battlefield, where he was 
 sorely pressed by enemies. For it was a part of 
 Marsden's nature, under the circumstances which 
 operated in his present environment, to assume 
 as true what people conspired to humor as an 
 idle whim. 
 
 The sea air, new faces and different life con- 
 vinced him that the same conditions would, in a 
 longer association, effect a cure; and when he 
 learned that the Halcyon had not arrived, his 
 complaints of Bradbury's neglect and unkindness 
 were bitter indeed. A telegram received the 
 next day did not change this attitude of despair, 
 for the vessel had not sailed until the eleventh of 
 August, and, with the weather to be expected at 
 that season, might not reach the Rock for a 
 fortnight. 
 
 "Two weeks on this hill," he roared, "why, 
 it's a rat-hole, a prison, and I wish I had never 
 come. Isabel, dear, why did you let me be per- 
 suaded into this wild-goose chase, when I was so 
 comfortable at Cowes." 
 
 He worried and fretted over this delay so much 
 that the next day he was prostrated by a high 
 fever and an alarming weakness in the heart
 
 1 1 8 A DESPERA TE CHANCE. 
 
 action. Lorrimore was such a devoted nurse 
 that Marsden implored him not to visit Tangiers ; 
 it was a horrible place, he growled, all fleas and 
 crippled misery. Lorrimore agreed, willingly, 
 to stay, but insisted that a physician should be 
 called in. 
 
 Though the employment of simple remedies 
 brought Marsden about rapidly, the illness had 
 enabled him to solve one difficulty with which he 
 had been struggling, for his first act was to send 
 Bentley a telegram, asking if he could make 
 arrangements to join them at the Rock, and 
 cross in the Halcyon. 
 
 Within five hours a cordial assent to the prop- 
 osition was received, together with the announce- 
 ment that Bentley would sail on the seventeenth. 
 
 Marsden was a new man after this was settled, 
 and, though he communicated the fact to no one, 
 its efifect was evident. He entered with a fever- 
 ish spirit into the amusements of the place ; he 
 went at times to the Barracks, had the officers he 
 knew best dine with him, drove about the Rock, 
 and as far as San Roque, but no further. " No," 
 he said, when a party was being made for a trip 
 inland. " No ! I know my Spain like a book, 
 and it is tiresome reading after the first page. 
 You see it all in a day. Hidalgos, onions, pride, 
 guitars, oranges, bodegas, the merry, merry mule-
 
 GIBRALTAR. 
 
 teer, castinets, flashing dark eyes, contrabandistas, 
 mandolins, quick knives, Boabdil, gypsies, bull- 
 fights, Bravo Torro, fans, Moors, olive oil, bad 
 cigars, and this Rock, which, by St. Jago, they 
 have loaned to England till the times are ripe, and 
 the larks fall. No, I loathe it, and so does Isabel. 
 But you go, Lorrimore, or, what is better, try 
 Tangiers. It is more oriental than Constanti- 
 nople, and the best thing, by long odds, as a study 
 of the East, this side of Damascus." 
 
 " But I have missed the steamer," replied Lor- 
 rimore, amused at the different estimate Marsden 
 now put upon Tangiers. 
 
 " You wouldn't go in the steamer ? Oh, that 
 would be a great mistake. You would lose the 
 preparatory appetizer. Get all the local coloring 
 you can," answered Marsden. 
 
 " But that means discomfort." 
 
 " Ah, you have no poetry in your soul," ex- 
 claimed this Sybarite, who would not have suf- 
 fered ten minutes' hardships if he had to miss the 
 finest sight in the world. " Go across the Bay to 
 Algecjras, and if old Perez is alive, he will give 
 you a place in the boat which supplies the Ceuta 
 Garrison with cattle, and you can work your pass- 
 age somehow. Put your feet in the bilge puddle 
 at the bottom, rest your head on a cow, get as ill 
 as you like, eat garlic with the greasy conscripts,
 
 120 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 drink the red ink they call Colares, salaam to 
 the Grand Bashaw, buy a fez cap and a pipe, bake 
 in the sunlight, but return before the twenty- 
 fifth. Go, my boy, be poetical, and go with my 
 blessing." 
 
 Lorrimore crossed to Tangiers, and Marsden 
 and Isabel settled down to a quiet enjoyment of 
 Gibraltar. He spent the best part of each day 
 reading the newest novels, and lived with the 
 characters, no matter how unreal or impossible 
 they might be ; he was moved to tears by the 
 sentimental chapters, and filled with joy when 
 lowly virtue triumphed over wealthy vice ; he 
 read choice bits aloud, and generally conducted 
 himself as a literary person of nice taste. 
 
 Isabel went in the mornings for long walks, 
 and on band days, when Marsden could be with 
 her, lingered in the garden of the Alameda, after 
 the music had ceased. To her there was a 
 charm in the quaint life of the Rock, and an 
 unending pleasure in the contrasted people of the 
 two continents. The grave and stately Moors 
 returning after sunrise from some eastern point 
 which looked toward Mecca; the British soldiers, 
 trim and automatic ; the Jews in gaberdines ; the 
 pale-brown Spanish girls with shining black hair ; 
 the yellow -gartered muleteers, driving with shrill 
 cries the water-laden donkeys ; the native women
 
 GIBRALTAR. 12 1 
 
 in red cloaks and hoods, edged with black velvet; 
 and, once, a woman from Tarifa, grim with the 
 yashmuk, and gaudy with bracelets of sesquins 
 and bangles of the< little sharp-pointed shells 
 found on the Rif Coast. 
 
 Upon breezy mornings she went to the Water- 
 Port, and watched the squall clouds sweeping 
 seaward, the white sails of distant ships, the red 
 and yellow boats bruising and battering each 
 other at the landing, and the swaying of the lat- 
 eens, as the xebecs brought to the mole the mot- 
 ley passengers from the Spanish mainland' or from 
 the dull and dead towns of the African coast be- 
 yond. 
 
 Bentley landed, one blustering morning, at 
 this same point, tired with the constant shaking 
 of the steamer, and wet with the spray which 
 dashed over the bow of the clumsy boat he 
 had hired to take him ashore. He jumped 
 briskly to the slippery mole, had his luggage 
 passed out, tossed the boatman a coin, and, 
 looking about him, thought, in the joy of 
 being near Isabel, that this was the Gate of 
 Paradise. 
 
 But when the hotel was reached, a nervous 
 anxiety that was beyond control dissipated the 
 courage which had sustained him so long ; and 
 though he had not breakfasted and was as hungry
 
 I2 2 '<* DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 as a shark, he did not venture down stairs until 
 after ten o'clock. 
 
 Marsden was on the alert, and greeted him 
 with a quick, glad cry of recognition, which was 
 followed by a moment of restraint, that might 
 have been embarrassing but for Bentley's frank 
 and cordial manner. This reassured Marsden, 
 who led the Colonel to a seat, and said, 
 
 " It's a delight to have you here, though I am 
 afraid my selfishness has put you to serious in- 
 convenience. But the truth is, Bentley, I am 
 convinced Doctor Dalton must be right, and 
 this voyage is to make a new man of me. I 
 was suffering from a bad turn when the telegram 
 was sent, and had you not promised to come, I 
 should be in bed this blessed minute." 
 
 " Then I am doubly glad to be here," responded 
 Bentley, sincerely. 
 
 " Ah, my boy ! that is just like you. I am all 
 right now ; but for an hour or two I feared the worst 
 might happen. Fortunately, nothing came of it 
 except to make plain what might occur at anytime. 
 Of course, I cannot go on board the Halcyon 
 without my daughter, and should anything hap- 
 pen there, I mean a serious illness, it would 
 be hard lines for Isabel to have no one in whom 
 she could put confidence. I remembered your 
 promise, and to cut short the whole story, I
 
 GIBRAL TAR. 
 
 123 
 
 wanted you to be near. I may have been a 
 selfish brute, but, in this, at least, I am thinking 
 only of her." 
 
 " You did right, and I am honored by the trust 
 you place in me." 
 
 " Thank you. But, while we are on this sub- 
 ject, let me be frank with you now, and confess, 
 that of all the miseries possible in this world, 
 none would be so serious as a separation from 
 my daughter, at any time, or under any circum- 
 stances. Indeed, Bentley, if I dared to believe 
 that, when my last hour came, she was not to be 
 with me, I would have no more peace nor rest in 
 life." 
 
 Bentley was about to reply, when he heard a 
 light step upon the stair, and the rustling of a 
 woman's dress. Turning expectantly, he saw 
 Isabel, quietly and gracefully coming toward 
 them. She was dressed in lawn, and at her 
 throat a half-blown rose trembled happily be- 
 neath a face which, like Unas, made sunshine in 
 dark places. 
 
 Ah ! the love, the love, he gave her, and the 
 tender eyes which gazed ! 
 
 Slowly she came downward, not seeing him 
 until at the very bottom of the stair, and then, as 
 he stood with outstretched hand, she mur- 
 mured, confusedly,
 
 124 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 " Colonel Bentley and here ? " 
 
 As she bowed her head to hide the glad sur- 
 prise which glorified her face, the flower shrined 
 at her neck fell to his feet He lifted it quickly, 
 and answered, 
 
 " Happily, yes." 
 
 The faded .petals of that Southern rose are 
 cherished to this day, for in the time to be he 
 learned all that this meeting had brought him.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HALCYON, AHOY ! 
 
 THE blustering day had changed to one of 
 sunshine and brisk breeze, the rack and 
 squall had blown to leeward, and in the bright 
 coolness of the morning, Bentley accompanied 
 Isabel on her walk, and renewed the recollections 
 of the town he had known so well years ago. 
 They listened to the band in the Alameda, saun- 
 tered idly through the gardens, prim with grav- 
 eled paths, and tortuous with a labyrinth of flam- 
 ing flowers, and then strolled homeward by way 
 of the Ragged Staff, where, all day long, noisy 
 Scorpions harried the patient donkeys which 
 climbed the steep incline leading from the 
 fountain. 
 
 This was the first of other happy walks, for in 
 its quaintness, its contrast of types, its traditions, 
 and its isolation, the Rock had an interest which 
 appealed at once to minds sympathetic with 
 nature and man, and critical with the wide ex- 
 perience of Old World travel. When they re- 
 
 125
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 turned to the hotel, they were aglow with the 
 physical response of their exercise, and happy 
 in the truer understanding of the ties which held 
 their lives, though this was the knowledge of 
 intuition ; for, dreaming of the future, they had 
 spoken, not of the present, but of the past. 
 
 Isabel knew nothing of Bentley's expected 
 arrival, and after the first surprise had passed, 
 accepted it with a happiness which confirmed the 
 revelation her heart had made, when she saw him 
 standing, unheralded, at the foot of the stairs. 
 Bentley offered no explanation of his presence, 
 and chose to assume that Mars den had spoken of 
 his coming, though, from her startled greeting, he 
 was certain this could not be true. She asked no 
 questions; and he volunteered no answers to the 
 inquiry her mind might be making, for he felt that 
 silence would most surely prevent either being 
 placed in a false position, at the beginning of a 
 voyage where circumstances might solve natur- 
 ally the riddle to be guessed. 
 
 Bentley had loved Isabel Marsden for nearly 
 a year, but it was with that unquestioning affec- 
 tion, which governs unselfishly the springs of 
 being without revealing the nature of the ruling 
 force. He had missed her with longings nothing 
 could soothe into forgetfulness, and had known 
 content and peace only when she was near. In
 
 HALCYON, AHOY! 
 
 the disparagement of his own possibilities, he 
 believed this was due to the separation of two 
 natures, which, complementing each other, were 
 in accord, and he gave no name to this desire 
 and its completeness, until, in that moment of sor- 
 row, when he knew it was a love, the fruition of 
 which seemed hopeless. 
 
 Though Isabel had been happy with Bent- 
 ley, she realized for the first time, when they 
 parted at Southampton, how much he had be- 
 come in her life. With this knowledge there 
 were born longings for something lost, regrets for 
 things done and undone, and struggles for accept- 
 ance and resignation. In the end, with the exer- 
 cise of that reserve power which enables women 
 to bow before the inevitable that men impotently 
 deny, she schooled herself to accept this hopeless 
 love, if not for the best, and if not to be forgot- 
 ten, at least as something to be hidden, even from 
 herself. 
 
 She would have been wanting in the intuitive 
 instinct of her sex had she failed to see in Bentley 
 an appreciation and a care for her which had 
 their roots deep in the soil of a true affection ; and 
 if she could not determine where this ended and 
 love began, it was because she did not know that 
 both were equally hedged about by cruel bounds 
 of circumstance. Isabel, by a promise given to
 
 I2 8 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 her father months since ah ! how cheerfully then, 
 and with such unquestioning faith in her strength 
 to keep it that no man's love should ever sepa- 
 rate their lives ; Bentley, by the acceptance of an 
 agreement with Marsden, never brutalized by 
 words nor penalized by vulgar compact, that in 
 his association with Isabel he would never by 
 word nor action seek to win her love. They were 
 both honest people and kept these promises, fruits 
 as the pledges were, of that selfishness which tries, 
 with a cruel egotism, to crush the strong-eyed, 
 sun-nursed love that ever waits and rules. 
 
 When they left Marsden that morning, he had 
 his chair carried into a garden near the Bay, and 
 looking upon the blue sky and bluer water, he 
 lived over again in his past life. 
 
 It had been a strange and cruel one. 
 
 Years and years ago there was, in his days 
 of wild adventure, one experience which he 
 thought but few men knew. He had gone to 
 the Pacific, even before the yellow grains in 
 Sutter's mill-creek made in the Occident a new 
 Republic built upon sand, but as stable as the 
 bed rock which underlies. He had traded and 
 mined in Mexico, and at last met and married, 
 in a quiet, drowsy puebla of Upper California, the 
 black-haired, bright-eyed daughter of Don Felipe 
 del Gado, to whose hacienda he had been brought,
 
 HALCYON, AHOY! I2 g 
 
 stricken with fever and sorely jarred by travel, from 
 the mines of the Lower Peninsula. 
 
 There was, after this marriage, a year or more 
 of such happiness as could satisfy a nature like 
 his in a land where the sun, blazing upon un- 
 turned fields, casts shadows only under the 
 knarled and stunted olive trees which shake their 
 dusty leaves to the parching breezes blowing 
 from peaceful seas. He could not enter into the 
 dull life about him, and not knowing its spirit nor 
 its compensations, showed a contempt that brought 
 him the dislike and hatred of the race with which 
 he lived. 
 
 Swinging lazily in his hammock on the cool 
 verandas, or riding aimlessly over the brown 
 stretches where Don Felipe grazed his flocks, it 
 was ever with the same thoughts, bitter regrets 
 for the folly which tied him to these people, use- 
 less plans and plots to escape from the thraldom 
 of the land. But in vain; and so, through dreary 
 months of despair, he lived in the benumbing idle- 
 ness of that semi-barbaric valley. 
 
 The chance for release, however, dawned at last; 
 for one day, with hurrying hoof-beat and the clat- 
 ter and jangle of steel and brass, came the news 
 of the gold to the northward. " Gold ! by the 
 sainted soul of Francisco d'Assis ! " cried the 
 dusty and spurred rider who hoarsely told the 
 9
 
 130 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 story as he rested, on his way to the south, in 
 the moist, cool court-yard at noon. " Gold, Don 
 Felipe, by the millions ! in river, in hill, in val- 
 ley, in dried quebradas ! and to be had for the 
 asking ! " 
 
 In a week from that night Marsden had left his 
 home forever. He had spoken to his wife of the 
 chance this search for gold offered, even during 
 a little absence, but she had begged him to wait, 
 if only for a month ; had sued and prayed for 
 herself, and for the sake of the child that was yet 
 to be. But she begged in vain, though he gave 
 her a lying promise, and, even as he kissed her 
 tears away, his busy mind was plotting how he 
 should go. 
 
 And so at midnight, when the cheerless fog 
 drove in from the sea where Cape Concepion 
 shoves its headland into the mist and rain, he rode 
 warily out of the olive-grove back of the house, 
 into the spectral fields, past the farm and pastures, 
 through the chapparal and brush and northward. 
 As he reached a bend where the road dipped and 
 was hidden from the home that had cured him in 
 sickness, from the girl who loved him as Chadi- 
 zah loved, he saw through a window facing the 
 sullen east, the tremulous gleam of the taper 
 which ever burned in his wife's room before the 
 shrine of the Blessed Mother.
 
 HALCYON, AHOY! j^i 
 
 When daylight came, he was miles away ; when 
 night fell, leagues were between him and the moan- 
 ing wife, stricken by grief with her awful agony; 
 and, as he rode into the tent-crowded plain near 
 the Mission of San Francisco, humming a jocund 
 air of liberty and watching the moon's rays in the 
 sea, there broke upon the stillness of the night in 
 the South the first, sad wail of a child born to a 
 heritage of woe. 
 
 When he reached the diggings, Marsden, for 
 he resumed the name which he had abandoned, 
 toiled and struggled, struggled and toiled, with 
 the best and worst of the people about him ; and 
 if not with better luck, at least with greater profit, 
 for he saved what he took from the earth or made 
 in barter. Before many months he was a man of 
 note, even in that lawless community; and with a 
 clear head, a cool judgment, and a heart which 
 never knew an unselfish pulsation, prospered so 
 much beyond his best hopes that in the end he 
 was by far the richest man in the camp. 
 
 In all this time he had never given a thought 
 to the wife he had left behind, and she passed 
 away, as if she had never been, in the mist which 
 the search for gold spun around the life he had 
 known. 
 
 But it all came back one day when a swarthy- 
 skinned, keen-eyed native rode slowly into the
 
 132 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 valley and dismounted at his cabin. The rider 
 was dusty and travel-stained, and his face was 
 worn with the weariness of physical and mental 
 strain. 
 
 When Marsden saw him, he looked to his 
 revolver, hid a knife in his shirt, and, with a 
 blanched face, stepped out of the hut; for this 
 grimy, wearied rider was the man from whom he 
 had won the daughter of Don Felipe, the one per- 
 son of all the world who would have died for her. 
 
 As Pedro de Saldo dismounted he left his pis- 
 tols undisturbed in the cumbrous holsters, and 
 approaching Marsden with a face that never 
 changed, gave him a letter, soiled with handling 
 and sealed with crimson patches of wax. 
 
 De Saldo stood quietly awaiting some sign. 
 When Marsden awoke from the first stupor of 
 surprise he muttered, in a tone which was meant 
 to be cheery, a few words of welcome, and offered 
 his hand. But the Mexican waved it quickly 
 aside, and said, 
 
 "No, no, Don Henrico! They would kill me 
 if they thought I had touched your hand." 
 
 Marsden turned to the busy camp as if looking 
 for help, but made no attempt to read the letter. 
 Finally he asked if an answer was wanted.
 
 HALCYON, AHOY! ^3 
 
 "That is for you to say, not now, but later, 
 as I am forbidden to carry it. There is news 
 in it for a man to study before he acts. When 
 you are ready you will find us easier than I have 
 found you, for I have searched everywhere in the 
 gold camps these two months. We did not know 
 your names in the South ; but you know ours, 
 and whatever answer you may have, send it, if 
 you please, by messenger, to the Priest of the 
 Mission of Santa Catalina, addressed to our 
 Padre Dominguez." 
 
 The Mexican called his horse, softly stroked 
 its face, and tightened the girths of the saddle. 
 Then, with one hand clasping the stallion's neck, 
 he said, 
 
 " You saved me once, Don Henrico, from the 
 stampede of the unbroken colts. I have never 
 forgotten that, and the Padre, knowing this, asked 
 me, of all, to find you. It will be well for you 
 and I advise you to remember this never to 
 seek the hacienda of Don Felipe again for he, 
 too, is dead. Be wise. Live and die here, any- 
 where, among your friends, with your worst 
 enemies but never come to Casa Blanca. We 
 are a good people only where we love or honor, 
 and they will kill you there, abajo" he mo- 
 tioned with his hand and threw back his head 
 to indicate the land he had left, "they will
 
 134 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 kill you, even I would try to kill you there, 
 abajo." 
 
 He lifted himself in his saddle painfully, stood 
 for a moment with slack bridle, and added, 
 
 " Don Henrico, farewell for ever, and be wise. 
 We have a proverb born of our land and homely 
 ways, listen : ' The wife's curse is the halter of 
 the husband.' Do you understand that ? Try, 
 for it means much to you, Don Henrico, and 
 now, adiosT 
 
 Marsden watched Pedro de Saldo as he rode 
 slowly by the dry brook, up the little hill, out of 
 the canon, and into the brown mountains that 
 walled the camp from the outer world, and then 
 flung a curse at the man he had wronged. 
 
 What the letter contained he never revealed ; 
 what he thought of the news no one ever knew ; 
 for in vain, during many days, did the spurred and 
 booted messenger of Padre Dominguez wait at the 
 drowsy mission of Catalina. But it told Marsden 
 that his poor wife, sorely stricken, had waited, and 
 waited, and waited, with patient longing, with un- 
 diminished trust, until the pain was stilled, and the 
 faith had its higher fulfillment in death. 
 
 Weeks afterward, Don Felipe, whose light and 
 air she had been, fell ill of a broken heart. The 
 grim old pioneer had never spoken of the man 
 who had wrecked their lives, but, in the last days
 
 HALCYON, AHOY! \^ 
 
 he took such precautions as would so he told 
 the priest prevent more harm coming to his 
 blood by the treachery and cruelty of the Gringo. 
 
 He willed his property, half to the Church, and 
 half to Padre Dominguez, to be kept in trust for 
 the support of his daughter's child and her fos- 
 ter-mother. These two he sent by the long route 
 of the land to the eastern seaboard, and thence, 
 in compliance with the mother's last wish, to the 
 country of her husband. But Don Felipe hid their 
 tracks so completely, that Marsden, even had he 
 searched, could never have found them. Then, 
 having made his peace with God, and dictated 
 to the Padre the few lines which told of the birth 
 of the daughter and the mother's death, he turned 
 his face to the wall, and, with an awful prayer for 
 vengeance, died as his daughter, his Carmenita, 
 had died, of a worn-out, wearied heart 
 
 Years afterward, Marsden tried to find some 
 trace of the child, but those who knew the secret 
 were dead, and it had disappeared as one whose 
 name is writ in water. It was to hide the memo- 
 ries of this past, and with some dull hope of 
 making compensation that, five years later, on 
 his return to New York, he had wooed and won 
 the mother of Isabel. As he remembered all 
 these things now, and recalled the two women 
 who had died for him, he prayed, that by his treat-
 
 A DESPERATE CPIANCE. 
 
 ment of Isabel, forgiveness might be granted him 
 for his neglect of the child he had never known. 
 
 The days of waiting in Gibraltar passed pleas- 
 antly. Bentley had heard nothing of Lorrimore, 
 until Marsden said, one morning, 
 
 " By the way, I met on the steamer a young 
 American, named Lorrimore ; he is a shy, retir- 
 ing sort of chap who was most civil to me. Just 
 now he is in Tangiers, but may return at any 
 moment. He intends sailing, if possible, from 
 Gibraltar, and, I know, would be delighted to go 
 with us. I have not asked him yet, though, if 
 you do not object, for I concede your rights in 
 this matter, I should like to offer him a passage 
 in the Halcyon." 
 
 "And your daughter ? " replied Bentley, in that 
 selfishness of love which only considers how this 
 may be affected. 
 
 " Oh, bless you ! she won't care one way or 
 another. She hardly knows him. And, as for 
 Lorrimore, it is not a case of beaux yeux ; at least, 
 not of Isabel's, for he half confessed it was to 
 escape some such affair at home, that had sent 
 him mooning about Tangiers at this season of 
 the year." 
 
 " I am sure," answered Bentley, "you are lucky 
 to have found Mr. Lorrimore. By all means let 
 him come."
 
 HALCYON, AHOY! I ^ 
 
 When the Halcyon did not arrive upon the 
 morning of the twenty-fifth, Marsden worked 
 himself into such a furor of impatience, that 
 Bentley and Isabel went, in self-defense, for a long 
 walk to the plateau of the Signal Tower. As 
 they came down the Rock toward noon, they 
 saw in the Bay a trim merchant ship, slowly 
 standing up, under all plain sail, for the anchor- 
 age. Her spars were lofty and tapering, the 
 cotton canvas was snow white, and, as she 
 forged ahead, her motion was as graceful as that 
 of a bird, poised high in the idleness of a sum- 
 mer twilight When she drew past their point of 
 view, the sails unmasked the fluttering folds of 
 an ensign, its galaxy of stars standing out against 
 the white of the canvas, and its stripes trembling 
 as a flame might in a calm. 
 
 They watched with eager curiosity, as, with a 
 tumble of foam, she shot into the wind, and, in 
 graceful curve, anchored in that safe holding 
 ground, which lives upon the bearing between 
 Mala and San Roque. 
 
 " The Halcyon," said Bentley, " and home." 
 
 After luncheon, Captain Waite, of the Halcyon, 
 called upon Marsden. He was of medium height, 
 with the broad shoulders and sturdy frame which 
 inspire at once a sense of confidence in a man's
 
 138 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 powers of endurance. His eyes were bright, 
 his bronzed face was frank and handsome, and a 
 prompt and decisive manner was softened by the 
 cheery, mellow ring of a voice which gales had 
 not roughened. His bearing was hearty and 
 courteous, as he turned, with a ready smile, from 
 one to another, and said how glad he would be 
 to welcome them on board. 
 
 " When will you sail, Mr. Marsden ? " he asked, 
 finally ; " for you are part owner, and I am under 
 your orders." 
 
 "What hour will suit you best; for we are 
 ready to go at any time," Marsden answered. 
 
 " Well, how will ten o'clock to-morrow morn- 
 ing do ? " 
 
 " Ten o'clock, let it be, and precious glad I shall 
 be to get away," said the ungrateful invalid. 
 
 " I shall send a boat for your baggage at eight, 
 and another one for you at nine. That will give 
 us daylight to get well clear of the land." 
 
 "What weather do you expect?" asked Bent- 
 ley. "That means a stiff breeze, does it not, 
 Captain Waite ? " 
 
 " Good weather for us, Colonel. What these 
 people call a Levanter ; that is, a fine, whole sail, 
 easterly breeze, which will put a bone in the Hal- 
 cyon's teeth, and leave a wake as straight and as 
 white as a skate mark on the ice."
 
 HALCYON, AHOY! 
 
 That night Captain Waite dined with his pas- 
 sengers, and though the change which followed 
 sunset presaged a storm, the dinner was no less 
 merry because of forebodings for the morrow. 
 Waite told, in a capital style, innumerable sea- 
 yarns ghostly, creepy stories of uncanny mis- 
 adventure, and breezy tales of wreck and rescue. 
 Marsden came out wonderfully, and nautically, 
 and when, at last, dinner was finished, all deemed 
 themselves fortunate in the prospect of such con- 
 genial shipmates for the voyage. 
 
 As Waite was leaving, Lorrimore, who had 
 just arrived from Tangiers, came into the room. 
 Marsden had entirely forgotten him, but broached 
 the subject of the trip, and receiving a glad assent, 
 presented him to Waite and Bentley. When 
 these two went out to smoke their cigars, Lorri- 
 more laughed nervously, and said, " That was our 
 fellow passenger, was it not ? and the other was 
 the Captain of the Halcyon ? I beg your pardon, 
 Mr. Marsden, but what did you say their names 
 were? Colonel Bentley and Captain Waite. 
 Thank you, one hardly ever gets a name right in 
 these hurried introductions." 
 
 Isabel had but half caught the meaning of 
 this scene, and looked inquiringly at her father, 
 who explained, hastily, 
 
 " Mr. Lorrimore, my dear, has consented to
 
 140 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 accompany us in the Halcyon, and I am sure 
 you will be glad to welcome him." 
 
 She spoke the graceful words her father ex- 
 pected, and with a courtesy which concealed the 
 surprise and discomfort the news gave. As she 
 was leaving the room, Lorrimore opened the door 
 and said, 
 
 "Thank you, Miss Marsden, nothing could 
 afford me more pleasure than this voyage, and I 
 hope to prove my appreciation in every way 
 before we reach home." 
 
 At this moment the gray hill flamed with a 
 cloud of light, and roared and grumbled with the 
 echoes of the evening gun ; the mountains and 
 valleys took up the sound and echo, and as this 
 tocsin of England's rule rang over the sea and 
 land, the haughty challenge was heard with 
 dread in the valleys and hills of the African 
 shore ; heard in the streets of Algeciras ; heard 
 on mountains and on ships at sea ; and always 
 with the maledictions of those who waited sul- 
 lenly for the day when the Spaniard would come 
 to his own again. 
 
 When the echoes died the rattle of drums, the 
 whistling of fifes and the swinging steps of trained 
 men, keeping time to the home songs of Eng- 
 land, burst upon the silence, and, as Marsden 
 went out of doors, he saw the night-guard of the
 
 HALCYON, AHOY! J 4I 
 
 Rock sturdily marching down the crowded street 
 Among the hurrying throng living outside the 
 walls, he discovered, under the glare of a street 
 lamp, the merry face of Captain Waite, who had 
 stopped and called to Bentley, 
 
 " Now don't forget, Colonel, mum's the word, 
 eh ? Mum's the word ! " 
 
 Marsden looked inquiringly, fumbled his cigar, 
 and repeated to himself querulously the words 
 Waite had used. Bentley waved his hand in 
 answer, but as he did not offer any explanation, 
 Marsden asked no questions, and after growling 
 at the overcast night, returned to the room he 
 had left. 
 
 What had happened was this. When Bentley 
 and Waite reached the street, and lighted their 
 cigars, the latter said, 
 
 " Excuse me, Colonel, but do you ever attend 
 seances, mediums, I mean, and all that sort of 
 thing ? No. Well, I saw you took more or less 
 interest in some of those stories I told to-night, 
 and I thought you might be equally interested in 
 the practical investigation. Facts, every one of 
 them. But you don't know of any mediums 
 here ? " 
 
 Bentley was startled by this abrupt declara- 
 tion, and recalled that, during dinner, Waite had 
 dilated with curious persistency upon the subject
 
 142 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 of apparitions, materializations and spiritualistic 
 phenomena generally. But as he was skeptical 
 from research, he concealed his surprise, and, 
 laughingly replied to that purport. 
 
 " So was I once, but from prejudice," answered 
 Waite, " and I don't know but I am still, though 
 I've seen a queer lot of things this last year, and 
 go now whenever there is a chance, whether I 
 understand the lingo or not; for I'm after the 
 truth, Colonel, yes, sir; and I'm bound to find it." 
 
 When the gun fired a moment later, and the 
 Captain turned toward the Gate, he added, "By 
 the way, Colonel, don't say anything about my 
 notions ; old men and ladies get skittish over this 
 sort of thing, and always think you are a spook 
 or a lubber, if you acknowledge any belief in it 
 at all." 
 
 And it was this promise which made Waite, a 
 little way down the street, repeat, laughingly, the 
 caution Marsden had heard. 
 
 Bentley stood upon the hotel steps smoking 
 his cigar, and watching with soldierly interest the 
 troops march past. The music rose and fell in the 
 distance with remembered melodies of his war 
 days, and, at last, in the Square by the Guard- 
 house, uprose the strains of that national anthem 
 which of all prayers most surely encircles the 
 world. When this was ended, silence fell as a
 
 HALCYON, AHOY I 
 
 143 
 
 mantle upon the fortress and its sleeping town ; 
 the wind freshened in squalls, and roared in the 
 holiows of the Rock ; lights swayed wearily in 
 the rigging of anchored ships, as if begging the 
 rest their watch denied; other lights died out, 
 one by one, upon the rugged hillside ; and in the 
 quiet streets footsteps awoke resounding, but not 
 unchallenged, echoes ; for the hail of sentries on 
 shore and the ringing of bells on ships in the bay, 
 all told of the watch the English kept by land 
 and sea, all warned the world that though the 
 Rock may slumber in the sullen night, its guar- 
 dians never sleep. 
 
 But of those who watched and warded the 
 crouching lion, or who on beds of sickness or of 
 pain prayed for dawn or death, none peered with 
 such hopeless eyes into the darkness, as one who 
 sat far into the middle watches of the night, look- 
 ing from a window of the hotel, at the ghostly 
 spars Oi" the Halcyon.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND. 
 
 THE morning dawned with mist and drizzle. 
 Clouds hung low on the mountains to the 
 eastward, and to the summit of the Rock, and in 
 its hollows, the fog clung like winding sheets. 
 Feathery scud flew seaward, and heavy squalls 
 roared in the skies, and spun in angry eddies 
 upon the waters of the bay. The war vessels 
 rode uneasily at their moorings off the Ragged 
 Staff, the surf dashed in spiteful whirls over the 
 sea-walls, and, in the Straits, now white with bil- 
 lows, the Levanter drove toward the Atlantic 
 the fleet, which, for days, had been wind and 
 current bound, between Malaga and Cape de 
 Gatt. The white houses fringing the shore, shiv- 
 ered behind the mist-wreathed walls, and, under 
 the shadow of the African coast, grey sails rolled 
 and pitched, as they ran for a gale-blown ocean. 
 The Halcyon was sheltered from the storm by 
 the anchorage she had taken, under the lee of 
 the barrier hill ; and, as she swung gently on the 
 144
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND. j^ 
 
 waves, showing her tapering spars distinctly 
 against the sullen skies, she looked like a lily, 
 lazily swinging in a pond of graceless weeds. 
 Aloft, the crew were making the final prepara- 
 tions for sea, and in the snug cabin, the steward 
 was busy fitting the state-rooms for the expected 
 passengers. At half-past nine the ship's boat 
 was sent to the water-port, and when, by ten, 
 there was no sign of its return, Captain Waite 
 became uneasy with a delay which might alter 
 all his plans. He walked persistently up and 
 down the deck, giving quiet words of command, 
 and envying his brother mariners, who were fly- 
 ing westward before the favoring breeze, until, at 
 last, for lack of other outlet, he said to the first 
 officer, 
 
 " Looks as if we might lose the strength of 
 the wind, Mr. Coffin." 
 
 "Yes, sir; likewise losing time. I am all 
 ready," replied that philosopher from Kenny- 
 bunkport, interrupting himself a moment, to 
 roar at a youngster aloft, who was seizing on 
 some chafing gear, smooth side out. " That is," 
 he continued, "we ain't losing as much as we 
 may be able to spare later. No, sir'ree, not by a 
 jug full," he added to himself, with the emphatic 
 aphorism by which he resolved all doubts. 
 
 " Is that our boat, Mr. Coffin, under the lee of
 
 -A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 the felucca, the one with red and yellow bow, 
 down there, in line with the old mole?" asked 
 Waite, presently. 
 
 " That's our boat, sir," Coffin answered ; " and 
 the way John Johansen, of Christianstadt, and 
 be damned to him, for a thick-headed, North 
 countryman, is pulling his oar in a sea way, 
 would be a disgrace to any ballyhoo afloat, much 
 less this here Halcyon, and I'll let him know it!" 
 
 When the boat came alongside, Marsden was 
 evidently in an ill-humor, for owing to some 
 misunderstanding, he had been delayed at the 
 hotel, and was now ready for a fierce combat of 
 words with any disputant who offered. The 
 captain welcomed them cordially on board, and, 
 without further delay, hailed the forecastle, and 
 ordered the chain to be hove short. 
 
 It was not a gay party that had assembled, for 
 the gloominess of the day, and the depression 
 which always asserts itself when a voyage is to 
 be commenced, had brought about a reaction in 
 the feelings of all, who last night had looked 
 forward so joyously to the embarkation ; but the 
 clink, clink, of the pawls, and the rude song of 
 the crew, as they hove in the black and oozy 
 chain, made a music which soon revived the 
 spirits of the company. The weather began to 
 look more promising, as the mist rose from the
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND. 
 
 147 
 
 land, and the sky cleared in patches to windward; 
 and, finally, the sun appeared at times, if not cheer- 
 ingly and warm, yet with that brightness which 
 comes and goes like the shifting of a screen, when 
 the heavens are a watery blue, and storm clouds 
 are working eagerly to leeward. 
 
 "Avast heaving," roared Coffin, as the chain 
 tended taut as a harp string, and straight from 
 the Halcyon's bow to the mud-embedded anchor ; 
 and then, scampering nimbly aloft, all hands 
 began to loosen the canvas. As sail was made, 
 Isabel and Bentley came on deck, but Marsden, 
 who was wet, and angry, and sorry, in his un- 
 reasonable way, that he had left the hotel, refused 
 to join them. 
 
 With a ringing chorus, and a quavering solo, 
 and a long, long pull, and a strong pull, and a 
 pull altogether, the topsails were set, the yards 
 were counter-braced, the anchor was lifted to the 
 bow, and the Halcyon, moving like a swan, payed 
 off to port, stole gracefully through the surround- 
 ing fleet, and, with a sturdy breeze, stood upon 
 her course for the Straits beyond. There was a 
 gurgle of musical water under her bows ; the 
 foam widened in sheets ; the sails curved with 
 clear cut sweep ; the hull listed slightly to lee- 
 ward ; and the wake stretched landward in a fur- 
 row, as straight as farmer ever made. As the
 
 148 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 Halcyon drew out from the lee of Europa Point, 
 and caught the full force of the Levanter, the 
 breeze was found so steady and sure, that sail 
 was made to to'gallant sails. 
 
 They were soon in the midst of the outward 
 bound shipping, and, as the ship overhauled and 
 passed the dullards, the spirits of all on board 
 arose, and they looked gratefully at the straining 
 canvas, the trembling wind pennants, and the 
 muscular helmsman, who swung so steadily the 
 guiding wheel. When the anchors were stowed, 
 Coffin came aft, and, after getting a pull here, 
 and a pull there, till every thread of canvas drew 
 to his satisfaction, said complacently to Bentley, 
 
 " She's a humming-bird, Colonel ; she's got 
 the bit between her blessed teeth, and we can't 
 hold her. She's a flyer and no mistake, yes, 
 sir'ree." 
 
 " She certainly is going very fast," answered 
 Bentley. " Is this her best point of sailing?" 
 
 " She hasn't any. They're all the same, by 
 the wind or before it, with, perhaps, a leetle 
 difference in her favor, when the breeze comes 
 over the quarter and she can carry her r'yals 
 without strain." As Coffin looked about him, 
 criticizing the vessels in sight, he laughed with a 
 mechanical chuckle, and said, 
 
 " Look at that drogher, Colonel, away off there
 
 HOME WARD BO UND. 
 
 to the eastward; we're going two feet for rier one, 
 and before we reach Spartel, we'll leave her, hull 
 down. Yes, sir ; the Halcyon is a clipper, and 
 just now, it seems as if all the New York girls 
 had hold of her tow-line." 
 
 Isabel was delighted with this new experience, 
 and such was the exhilaration of the race for the 
 ocean, that Marsden, who came on deck, con- 
 fessed it was something like sailing, after all. As 
 Gibraltar became an indistinct mass in the dis- 
 tance, the sunlight glinted warmly on Tarifa, and 
 with a moderate sea, balmy temperature, clear 
 sky and strong breeze, the Halcyon found a 
 perfect day. By sundown a good westing had 
 been made, and when the departure was taken 
 from Cape Spartel, the stars came out with the 
 promise of a clear, bright night. 
 
 Just before the darkness fell Coffin sidled up 
 to Bentley, and said, pointing up the Straits, 
 
 " There she is, Colonel, there's the old drogher. 
 I was second mate of her once, and they call her 
 the Sea Witch. Fine Sea Witch, she is, though 
 she's lost none of her old tricks ; for there she 
 ambles like a rocking-horse adrift in a tideway, 
 flying our flag, hull down, and all the Daygoes, 
 Johnnie Greeks and Dutch Galliots beating her 
 like smoke." 
 
 The dinner brought upon the anxious steward
 
 ISO 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 a shower of merited compliments ; the good 
 spirits of the captain were infectious, and Mars- 
 den so far forgot his former annoyance, as to say 
 that he had never spent a better day in his life. 
 Lorrimore retired to his room early, for he was 
 a poor sailor, and when the others went on deck, 
 it was nearly eight bells. 
 
 The night was beautifully clear, the Levanter 
 had lost its fury, and with all sail set, the Hal- 
 cyon stole like a ghost under the eternal stars. 
 Marsden and Isabel were enthusiastic with the 
 swift but easy movement of the ship, for accus- 
 tomed, as they were, to trans-Atlantic trips on 
 steamers, the absence of the jar and clangor of 
 the machinery, and of the din made by the pas- 
 sengers moving about the decks, gave them a 
 sense of peace and security which they had never 
 before experienced. Marsden, with a vigorous 
 assertion of the good hours he intended to keep, 
 went below at nine o'clock, and left Bentley and 
 Isabel sitting to leeward, watching the phosphor- 
 escent water and hearing the sturdy song of the 
 sea. 
 
 Finally, she said, with an anxious questioning 
 in her voice, 
 
 " Do you think this voyage will benefit my 
 father ? " 
 
 " It will benefit him and all of us," he replied,
 
 HOME WARD B O UND. i $ l 
 
 cheerfully, " for with the exceptions of the run 
 from the west coast of South America to Poly- 
 nesia, or the trip through the Inland Sea of 
 Japan, there is nothing to compare with the 
 southern passage, at this season of the year." 
 
 " Nothing could be better than its commence- 
 ment. It has revived his spirits already, and to 
 me it is a fairy-land, one where the immortals 
 sleep, and which will fade with daylight." 
 
 He looked at her with a glad smile, rejoicing 
 in this mood, and answered, 
 
 "Does fairy-land ever pass away? Is it not 
 always awaiting, anxious to reveal its beauties to 
 us, and do we not bann it with sordid cares ? " 
 
 " Mine is surely here," she said, " and it is one 
 where fairies could not live, for there is no green 
 ring, nor flowery bank, nor opening blossoms 
 where these good people sleep." 
 
 As he turned to look upon the encircling 
 waters, he pointed over the starboard quarter, 
 and added, 
 
 " And there are its pilot stars." 
 
 As she looked, the red and green lights of a 
 vessel, steering more to the south'ard, rose and 
 fell in graceful salutation upon the sea. The 
 signals grew brighter, the sails loomed in the 
 darkness, the gear made a tracery against the 
 sky, and as the ship passed under the stern, they
 
 152 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 saw the cheerful glimmer of the cabin windows, 
 and heard the sturdy chorus of the watch trim- 
 ming the after yards. 
 
 " What companionship there is, even in such a 
 distant greeting as that," he said, when the ship 
 faded in the night. " And a sad one, too, for it 
 may be the last message of the land until we see 
 the lights of home." 
 
 "There is a sense of companionship in it," 
 Isabel returned, "and already I miss it as a 
 friend as an unknown friend, who has done in 
 secret an unselfish act." 
 
 " Does the prospect of this isolation alarm 
 you?" he inquired. "This thought of the lone- 
 liness which may be yours for many days?" 
 
 " No, because it is a loneliness which is never 
 without hope. Each day, one can believe, will 
 bring the long-expected ship, each night, the 
 friendly light. After all, it is like life." 
 
 " Not like all lives," he said, with some little 
 bitterness ; " for to many who have tried to de- 
 serve better things, there never can be a sail on 
 any sea, nor in any night, a light." 
 
 " That is not the philosophy of your life, Col- 
 onel Bentley, is it? You know, we agreed to 
 accept my optimism as the truer theory of living. 
 Confess," she added, with a smile, " that my 
 belief is the better."
 
 HOMEWARD SOUND. 
 
 153 
 
 " So much better," he exclaimed, quickly, 
 " that I have tried to disown and deny the ex- 
 perience, which will not let me acknowledge it 
 is always true." 
 
 " I can understand," she said, " how men who 
 deal with affairs, can share with you this what 
 shall I call it ? this doubt, negation. But what 
 has there ever been in my life to make me believe 
 other than I do. I have returned so little for all 
 I have received, indeed, I am so powerless, 
 that to doubt would be a treason, doubly evil for 
 its ingratitude." 
 
 " What is the Persian proverb, done in halting 
 verse ? " he asked, smilingly, 
 
 " ' The sun no love asks from the rose, 
 The flower's life, this guerdon shows.' 
 
 You have neglected no duty," he continued, 
 " not because it has been any easier, I fancy, ex- 
 cept in the escape which, like most women, you 
 have had from the experiences that prove how 
 impossible it is to act equally by all men. Op- 
 timism is beautiful ; it is a delicate flower, born 
 of the sunshine and the dew, while pessimism is 
 a rank weed, forcing itself in barren wastes ; you 
 expect something from the flower, nothing from 
 the weed, even if it be a plant, the virtues of 
 which are undiscovered. But pessimism is rugged,
 
 154 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 and coarse, and comfortable, in the freedom from 
 care it gives to him who owns. It saves one from 
 fatiguing enthusiasms, and furnishes arguments 
 which can fit every individual case somewhere." 
 
 "Ah! but you must forget this creed," she 
 insisted, " lest this isolation, which you feared 
 for the rest of us, appalls you, even with your 
 early sea-training." 
 
 If he could have told her that in this world 
 there had never been a greater happiness than to 
 sit in the starlight with her, where the world was 
 a poem ; if he had but dared whisper that with 
 her there could be no loneliness ; or if he had 
 known that her glad faith in life was never 
 stronger than to-night, because they were read- 
 ing this story of love and life together. 
 
 He answered her cheeringly. 
 
 " No, sea-life never was distasteful to me ; and 
 I have never been fully satisfied since I left my 
 first profession, and I have known days when its 
 poetry was duller than any prose. The sea was 
 my first love, to be a sailor my earliest ambition, 
 and I have often thought the failures following my 
 attempts at various things, grew out of the 
 knowledge that I had begun with a mistake by 
 resigning. Until a year ago, I was more lonely 
 on shore than afloat, even at its worst; and I 
 pitied no one so much as myself. It was for
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND. 
 
 155 
 
 this I gave up all active life, and it is a truth ; 
 that when I withdrew most from men and affairs, 
 I became most happy because I was less lonely." 
 
 " Such is the justification of the cynic, is it 
 not? " she asked. "And I am sure you are not 
 of that unhappy sect" 
 
 " No, because cynicism is first an affectation, 
 then a habit I had nothing which induced me 
 to pose for what I was not, and I know too much 
 of the possibilities of other men to have acquired 
 the habit My contentment in the world of 
 dreams was due to other things." 
 
 " Then there is hope for you," she replied, " as 
 there is for all of us." 
 
 " Do you think so ? Sometimes I have tried 
 to believe this, but where is the truth ? " 
 
 As four bells rang out musically, and the hail 
 of the lookout followed, she rose to go. With an 
 impulse he could not restrain, Bentley touched 
 her arm lightly, and said, 
 
 " You do not answer me. Is it because that 
 would be asking you to give too much of your 
 faith to one who deserves it so little ? " He 
 paused a moment, and when she did not speak, 
 continued : " But you are right, and, perhaps, 
 silence is the better answer." 
 
 " No," she replied, resolutely, " that would be 
 unfair; the physician who diagnoses a disease
 
 i S 6 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 should not be without a remedy. There is hope 
 for you everywhere ; in the world you have left, 
 in the ambitions you have forsaken, in the ideals 
 you still cling to, in the world you are seeking, 
 there, here, everywhere. But it must come 
 from yourself, and by achievement, otherwise, it 
 is so lightly gained that it will be as lightly 
 lost." 
 
 He walked to windward with her, and, as they 
 reached the rail, said, 
 
 " Again you are right, and, at times, I have be- 
 lieved that I was in the road which reveals this truth, 
 I know it now. Let me tell you how. Once, 
 years ago, and in some other sphere, if you will, 
 when I was appalled by the failure I had made 
 of my opportunities, an influence came into my 
 life with the greatest good it has ever known." 
 
 "A permanent good, I hope," she exclaimed, 
 as he hesitated for an instant. 
 
 " Thank God, yes ! it is unchanging. I was 
 wandering aimlessly, though not altogether un- 
 happy, for I had put aside ambitions which were 
 fruitless, and my purpose was to attain a growth, 
 an evolution, a development, where I would find 
 peace. This influence slipped into my life un- 
 consciously, and gave me first, rest ; next, peace ; 
 then, best of all, hope. It brought me strength to 
 wait, to endure, and to suffer, if need be. From it
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND. 
 
 I learned how much evil my fear, my moral cow- 
 ardice, and my hesitation, were working, and the 
 faith gained from this knowledge I have not 
 lost." 
 
 "And this influence?" asked Isabel, leaning 
 over the taffrail to look at the gleaming water 
 rushing past. 
 
 "Was a woman " 
 
 "A wo'man ! " she repeated. " It must have been 
 a rare privilege for any woman to work such good. 
 But she what of her life?" 
 
 "It was to me," he answered, earnestly, "a 
 part of everything beautiful around me ; I saw it 
 in every picture, read it in every poem. It was 
 in the sea, in the sky, in the land, and every- 
 where it was pure and true." 
 
 " You will never see her again ?" she asked, half 
 sadly. 
 
 He offered his hand, and helped her carefully 
 down the weather ladder, for the motion of the 
 ship was unsteady enough to make these little 
 courtesies possible ; then, taking off his hat, and 
 standing where the light from the cabin door 
 which he opened flooded the deck, and left them 
 both in shadow, he answered, 
 
 " I see her always and as gratefully and happily 
 as I see you now, for it is the truth that your life 
 teaches which has given me my faith and hope."
 
 Xijg A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 She came out of the shadow, stood a moment 
 in the light and looked at him steadfastly ; then 
 with an inclination of her head and a salutation 
 which was so low as to be undistinguishable, 
 she passed into the cheerful cabin. 
 
 Bentley was deeply moved by all that had 
 occurred. He did not dare question himself as 
 to the effect or propriety of what he had done, 
 for the impulse had been uncontrollable and he 
 had arrived at a stage when complete resistance 
 would have seemed a disloyalty. He had spoken 
 no word of love or loving, but he could not deny 
 that he hoped she might learn how deep his affec- 
 tion was. In the first flush of excitement he was 
 sure he had done only what his manhood asserted 
 should be, but later, he was filled with dreary 
 doubts, that, perhaps, he had said too much, or 
 that the manner of his avowal had been too ab- 
 rupt. He could justify his action in its relation 
 to Marsden, but he feared if she should misjudge 
 him there would be an end forever to the asso- 
 ciation which had become a necessity of his life. 
 
 He lighted his cigar, walked irresolutely for a 
 while, went to the rail, and, without seeing any- 
 thing of his surroundings, was calmed and cheered 
 by the beauty of the night. 
 
 The breeze was fresh and pungent, as if in it were
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND. 
 
 159 
 
 commingled the saltness of the outer deeps and the 
 cedar, myrrh and frankincense of the African land 
 they were leaving ; the horizon was an unbroken 
 circle of light, and to windward, silvery clouds 
 were sailing where the moon, in its wane, looked 
 down upon a crescent of tremulous waves. There 
 was no sound about the spectral decks, save where 
 the watch gathered under the weather rail, was 
 listening with deep interest, to the high-pitched 
 monotone of a man-of-war's man, who was tell- 
 ing, as his personal experiences, the adventures 
 of many a hero, dead before he was born. The 
 lookout forward was silhouetted against the head 
 stays ; and aft, the second mate, new to his re- 
 sponsibilities, walked zealously from the wheel 
 to the weather rigging, and looked alternately at 
 the compass and the horizon which told only of 
 a quiet watch. 
 
 As Bentley glanced through the cabin sky- 
 light, he saw Marsden and the captain sitting 
 over a steaming glass of grog, and finally heard 
 a boisterous good-night as the latter came on 
 deck for his last look at the weather. When 
 he saw Bentley, Waite said, and this somewhat 
 noisily, 
 
 "Not a bad day's work, Colonel, for a deep- 
 laden ship, and where was there ever a finer night 
 for getting clear of the land ? If this breeze holds
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 we will make our westing and run down for the 
 Trades before Sunday." 
 
 " It is a perfect night and the Halcyon has done 
 capitally," Bentley responded, cordially. " I con- 
 gratulate you not only upon the ship but upon 
 your crew. They are as neat, two-handed sailors 
 as I have ever seen." 
 
 " None better ; no sea-lawyers nor growlers 
 among them ; strong and willing, with plenty of 
 good wishes, and both hands for ship and owners, 
 and that is a great deal in these degenerate days 
 of stokers." 
 
 The captain walked aft, looked at the compass, 
 and, declining the cigar Bentley offered him, con- 
 tinued, 
 
 " But they are no better for'a'd than they are aft. 
 I have two as good mates as there are afloat. Coffin 
 has had his ship, and there is a lot of good timber 
 in this youngster." He called the mate, gave him 
 some instructions for the night, and said, 
 
 " This ought to-be a lucky voyage all around, 
 and if for no other reason than the bright eyes 
 and sweet voice of Miss Marsden, who has 
 brought us this good fortune at starting." 
 
 Bentley was pleased at the heartiness of this, 
 and replied, 
 
 "Yes, but none better than the wishes she 
 makes for you and the ship."
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND. T 6 X 
 
 "That's kind of her," returned the captain, 
 warmly, " and I know the Halcyon will deserve 
 her good opinion. How bright the stars are ! " he 
 added ; " and look at Polaris. Really, the faithful 
 old boy is winking with joy to see my barky, reel- 
 ing off the knots for home. Sorry you didn't come 
 below, Colonel ; Mr. Marsden and I have had a 
 jolly night. He is a clever man, with a wonder- 
 ful knowledge of everything, though we do differ 
 upon some subjects. But who don't ? Well, I 
 think I'll turn in." 
 
 The captain stretched his arms at full length, 
 and drew in a great breath of sea air. 
 
 " There, that would win a yacht race, and as it 
 is my night-cap, I will sleep upon it like the re- 
 lief of an anchor watch." 
 
 Soon after seven bells, Marsden came on deck. 
 
 "Hello!" he said. "How are you? Still 
 mooning ? " 
 
 " Not that exactly," answered Bentley, coming 
 back to earth by a strong pull, " moralizing." 
 
 " Moralizing ! give it up, it is indictable." 
 
 " No, it was about you, just now," returned 
 Bentley. 
 
 " About me," inquired Marsden, " that is still 
 worse, it means conviction. How can you mor- 
 alize about a poor creature without morals ? " 
 
 "No, I was wondering what you were doing
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 out of bed at this hour, if you expected to find 
 any health in the voyage. I heard you at six 
 this morning, and here seven bells have gone 
 already." 
 
 " Hang seven bells ! I came up to look at the 
 weather, and to see if everything was all right. 
 That is nautical, is it not ? I have had a delight- 
 ful evening. Waite's a capital fellow, overflowing 
 with the most considerate and unobtrusive kind- 
 ness, and filled with the most interesting yarns. 
 But he has a bee in his bonnet. Has he ever 
 said anything to you of his seances, and the 
 great work he is compiling." 
 
 Bentley was sorry to learn Waite had aired 
 this subject, but he parried the question deftly, 
 and answered, 
 
 " Oh, that is only a sea luxury. This ship 
 speaks for him, and in all my time, I have never 
 seen anything better handled." 
 
 " He's a thorough seaman, I should say, though 
 I do not know anything about it," replied Mars- 
 den; "but, bless your soul, he is daft on spirit- 
 ualism. For the last two hours, more or less, he 
 has been telling the most creepy yarns, every one 
 with a delightful ghost, who proved some theory. 
 He has a book as big as an unabridged diction- 
 ary, filled with proofs; and his authorities, 
 my head aches with them, how he mixed
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND. ^3 
 
 them ! There were esoteric Buddhists and Brah- 
 mins, Swedenborg, Mrs. Crowe, Kabbalistic 
 Jews, Hume, Rosicrucians, Jacob Bcehmen, 
 Slade, Paracelsus, Mrs. Hardinge, the Eddys, 
 Pythagoras, Sergeant Cox, and all the rest of 
 them, not forgetting the deceased and lamented 
 Samuel Wheeler. He is a Psychic Society all 
 by himself. Why, Bentley, his reasons are as 
 plenty as blackberries, to prove that ' they ' as 
 he calls the uneasy departed are all about us." 
 
 " I suppose his sea reading is a little mixed, 
 but," insisted Bentley, trying to remove any idea 
 which might react by weakening Marsden's con- 
 fidence in Waite, " he is an excellent navigator, 
 and has a reputation that is not confined to the 
 merchant service." 
 
 " Oh, don't be afraid of my misjudgment there 
 is nothing incompatible between sighting spooks 
 and getting the ship's position. But, by the way, 
 Bentley, he is awfully down on your friends, the 
 adepts. He scorns Blavatsky, and has never 
 heard of Eliphas Levi. He admits that many 
 mediums are not to be trusted, but he is certain 
 that all you Theosophists are possessed by the 
 devil, and proper subjects for serious police 
 inquiry." 
 
 " You do not mean he discussed Theosophy 
 with you ? " asked Bentley.
 
 164 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 "Discussed it," roared Marsden, "he did bet- 
 ter ; he settled it, in three minutes, by the clock. 
 But I must bring you together in a symposium, 
 and then, look out for your spiritual dynamics." 
 
 Bentley laughed quietly, at this fanfaronade of 
 Marsden's, and asked, 
 
 " But don't you think it better not to encour- 
 age these discussions ? " 
 
 " Not encourage him," repeated Marsden, " I 
 would not lose him for my share in the ship. 
 My dear boy, he is a mine of intellectual devel- 
 opment and wonder to me. When you find a 
 thin, long-haired, cadaverous chap, who takes in 
 stray five-penny bits by materializing your long- 
 lost Indian maidens, your Mr. Gruffs, and dear 
 little Effies, you accept it as a matter of cheerful 
 robbery; but here is a strong, beefy, breezy 
 sailor, who is producing at sea a magnum opus, 
 and demolishes in seven seconds, by his chro- 
 nometer, a wonderful philosophy, which the in- 
 heritors of the Magian, the Chaldean, the Egyp- 
 tian, and the Rishis, have built up and you ask 
 me not to encourage him? I shall do better. 
 I shall feed him with interrogation, go with him 
 to his seances, dote upon his materialization, and, 
 at the proper season, turn on my dark lantern, 
 and seize the charlatan, with all the parapher- 
 nalia, red-handed, upon her or him, as the case
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND. ^5 
 
 may be. But, I say, Bentley, it would be a bad 
 lookout for us, if he fancied he could see, in en- 
 tranced vision, five thousand miles, or, steering 
 by the advice of a materialized Captain Cook, 
 land us somewhere on the Florida reefs." 
 
 " You will find his navigation as right as his 
 seamanship," declared Bentley, "and that this 
 dallying with fourth dimensions, and his accu- 
 mulation of facts relating to spiritual phenomena, 
 are as harmless, if not so amusing, as a collection 
 of the good things said in your old exchange." 
 
 " Well, I hope so but, what, in the name of 
 Benbow and Nathaniel Bowditch, is that terrific 
 row forward ? Is it a mutiny or a round-robin ? 
 you always have those in the personally con- 
 ducted sea novel, don't you?" 
 
 It was the calling of the watch below ; and as 
 the quaint and rough summons awoke the quiet- 
 ness of the night, and the port-watch tumbled 
 sleepily on deck, Marsden went to his room. 
 
 Bentley waited a little while, for now that the 
 excitement was gone, he was pursued by the fear 
 he had said too much to Isabel ; had alarmed 
 her, perhaps, for when she passed into the light, 
 he saw that her face was white and her eyes were 
 blurred with tears. But he had cast the die and 
 his heart had burst the barriers, not only with 
 the need of showing the truth it had held so
 
 DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 wearily and with such misery, but of telling her 
 that she had opened for him, in his desolation, a 
 pathway to earnest labor, without which his life 
 would have been as nothing.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A DARK NIGHT. 
 
 GOOD weather followed the Halcyon. The 
 Captain shaped a course to pass between 
 the Madeira and Canary Islands, though he did 
 not haul to the southward until the ship had run 
 far enough west to avoid the calms, which at that 
 season are often found inside of the tenth meri- 
 dian. By the time the blue skies and steady 
 northeast trades were reached, the passengers had 
 fallen naturally into the routine of shipboard life. 
 Everybody was sure the voyage had been a 
 happy inspiration, but no one more than Mars- 
 den, who was delighted with the compensations 
 in health and quiet pleasure which he received. 
 He passed the best part of each day on deck, and 
 evinced such interest in the novelties of ship 
 management, that finally he ventured with airy 
 persiflage to be oracular about principles of 
 seamanship and wise in prophecies of wind and 
 sea. 
 
 Isabel's relations with Bentley were unaltered ; 
 
 167
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 and happy in the certainty that his fears had been 
 idle, he accepted the conditions of his environ- 
 ment as idyllic. Lorrimore suffered much in the 
 beginning from sea-sickness and from the con- 
 finement it necessitated, but when, at the end of a 
 week, he came on deck looking pale and ill, 
 he received their congratulations with an opti- 
 mism which confessed to nothing but the pleas- 
 ures the rest of the voyage promised. His days 
 were spent alone, generally, in reading under the 
 shade of the awning or about the decks ; but 
 though he held aloof from the others, it was not 
 in a moody, ill-conditioned way, or as if his 
 somewhat strained relations with Marsden in- 
 cluded them. With his shyness he mingled a 
 certain tact that made this quiet avoidance the 
 apparent outcome, either of an innate diffidence 
 or of an absorption in studies, which relieved it 
 from the suspicion of discourtesy. He rarely 
 began any conversation, though he was always 
 attentively courteous, and when, by any chance, 
 his opinions were elicited, he was found to enter- 
 tain, if not hopeful views of life, at least such as 
 did not exclude an acknowledgment that they 
 might be open to error. 
 
 Between him and the Captain an intimacy 
 developed which finally made his sympathy with 
 the latter's aims so active that his reading ran
 
 A DARK NIGHT. l fa 
 
 entirely in the grooves of spiritualistic literature ; 
 and when Bentley half laughingly avoided further 
 discussions upon the subject, he intimated plainly 
 to Lorrimore that the encouragement given 
 by him to Waite was unwise. Marsden showed 
 but little interest in Lorrimore, and, at times, 
 made him the target for his rough wit, but as a 
 compensation, the others displayed a considera- 
 tion which he appeared to recognize with grati- 
 tude, though it did not alter his relations with 
 them. Whether it was that he understood Bent- 
 ley's feelings for Isabel, or because of his own 
 reserve, he never joined them ; indeed, he car- 
 ried this personal isolation so far, that, if by 
 any chance, he was talking to Isabel and Bentley 
 approached, he would offer an excuse for retiring, 
 and, at times, so clumsily, that his good inten- 
 tions rendered the situation embarrassing. 
 
 Captain Waite was indefatigable in his efforts 
 to make the ship happy fore and aft, and more 
 than justified Bentley 's high praise. In every 
 way he was prudent, skillful and systematic ; at 
 half-past twelve each day he marked upon a 
 small track chart the ship's position, and when 
 the Halcyon's run was particularly good, it was 
 celebrated by elaborate luncheons, which were 
 filled with surprises of sentimental sea cookery. 
 
 The Trade Winds blew strong and steady, and
 
 I/O 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 when the lowest intended limit of latitude, 24 
 north, was reached, and the ship was pointed due 
 west, the captain, with lifted cares, sat down to 
 his labor upon the great work. 
 
 The days and nights could not have been more 
 beautiful. Over the starboard quarter the loyal 
 breeze sang joyously and true; the sunlight shone 
 with purity from an unmarred sky; and, encircling 
 the silvered horizon, cloud masses rose tier on 
 tier like the foundations of a spirit land, and held 
 the wavering light and shadow as moon rays 
 come and go in canons of eternal snow. The 
 stars pulsated in a wilderness of worlds, the seas 
 revealed translucent deeps of blue, and in un- 
 broken undulations the foamless waves rolled 
 silently to the tropic islands which gem their 
 western bounds. 
 
 The happiness aft was reflected forward, and 
 no hour was more enjoyed than that at sunset, 
 when the " Doctor " as the black cook was 
 called came out of the galley with his battered 
 fiddle, and played for the men, in the music of 
 the early century, merry jigs and square dances, 
 or tender accompaniments to the negro melodies, 
 which they sang with lusty pathos. 
 
 But the little cloud, no bigger than a man's 
 hand, soon appeared. 
 
 On the twentieth day from Gibraltar, the chro-
 
 A DARK NIGHT. 
 
 I/I 
 
 nometer stopped. Captain Waite had wound it 
 carefully before he went on deck for his morning 
 sight; but, in the afternoon it had ceased going, 
 and, upon examination, the main-spring was found 
 broken. The hands showed the accident must have 
 occurred at three o'clock. 
 
 Waite, though sorely disturbed, mentioned this 
 mishap only to Bentley, but it was soon apparent 
 to everybody that something serious had hap- 
 pened. The Captain lost his cheerfulness, grew 
 reserved and pre-occupied, and, at times, became 
 despondent. " Not that it makes such a differ- 
 ence," he said to Bentley, " for I have nearly run 
 my longitude, and shall haul up so carefully to 
 the north that I anticipate no trouble. But it's 
 the manner of this accident which worries me." 
 
 Waite's original intention had been to avoid 
 the squalls and fogs north of Bermuda, by pass- 
 ing to the southward of that island, and, as the 
 ship had escaped, so far, the revolving storms 
 which threatened at that season of the year, he 
 hoped no serious disturbance of his course would 
 prevent him preserving the original plan. Bent- 
 ley was not so much alarmed by the accident to 
 the chronometer, as by the change which he saw 
 in the Captain, and this feeling received a double 
 emphasis, when, one- evening, as they were losing 
 the Trades, Waite remarked, despairingly,
 
 1/2 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 " Of course, you will laugh at my superstition, 
 Colonel Bentley, but that chronometer was stopped 
 by no mortal agency, and it is a warning of some 
 kind. There was just such a case in one of the 
 East India Company's ships in 1832 or 33, and 
 though the Singapore Castle was saved by a mir- 
 acle, the captain disappeared, about ten minutes 
 before the pilot came on board, off the mouth of 
 the Hoogly. Chronometers stop, and are broken, 
 I know, and without apparent reason, but " and 
 here he lowered his voice " it's a strange coinci- 
 dence, that, at the same hour, two years ago, my 
 poor wife died. It's a mystery, and, if anything 
 should happen, I want you to remember it isn't the 
 first warning I have had since I left New York on 
 this voyage." 
 
 " I respect your grief and doubts, Captain 
 Waite," answered Bentley, " but could not this 
 strange as the coincidence is have been due to 
 some mischance? You are sure you did not 
 wind it too tight, or that some one may have 
 accidentally jarred it ? " 
 
 " Impossible ! I am always careful, and be- 
 sides, the room was locked all day, and no 
 one entered it, except the steward, whom I 
 sent for my navigator at noon, and Lorrimore, 
 some time after luncheon, to get the second vol- 
 ume of a book he is studying."
 
 A DARK NIGHT. 
 
 173 
 
 On the twenty-third day, the Halcyon lost the 
 Trade Winds. For forty-eight hours these had 
 been decreasing in force, and hauling to the south- 
 ward, and, with the light breezes which succeeded, 
 came violent rain squalls, accompanied by vivid 
 lightning, and threatening appearances around 
 the horizon. At last, even the cat's-paw, that had 
 ruffled so tremulously the face of the waters, 
 disappeared, and for four wretched days, the 
 Halcyon, with flapping sails and creaking spars, 
 rolled helplessly and unceasingly upon the bosom 
 of a sea which glared like a shield of molten lead. 
 
 When, at the end of this second day of calm, 
 the sunset gave no hope of cooling breeze, Mars- 
 den's irritation, which had increased hour by hour, 
 no longer repressed its expression. With a quer- 
 ulous insistency, he began by growling at the 
 ship, and, as no one contradicted him, he blamed 
 the captain for allowing the Halcyon to be lured 
 into a " No Man's Sea," where the invested capi- 
 tal, so hardly earned, was, owing to bad naviga- 
 tion, wasted in barren idleness. " And I believe," 
 he grumbled to Bentley, who was the outlet for 
 these complaints, " it's all due to Waite's damned, 
 absurd dabbling with spiritualism." 
 
 But even sub-tropical calms have an end, and 
 on the morning of the twenty-eighth day, the 
 ship rolled and drifted into the region of variable
 
 174 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 winds. Soon after sunrise, a wary picket of blue 
 appeared in the distant horizon ; a little skirmish 
 line of white foam crept, crescentwise, from the 
 eastward, then clouds, like the smoke of artillery, 
 and the waving banners of a host, rose in the 
 morning air, and, finally, with a rattle and roar, 
 there came an onslaught of the wind, which made 
 the Halcyon rush before it, as a defeated army 
 flies. 
 
 The sense of movement, of accomplishment, 
 gave new life to everybody, and where a moody 
 silence had rested as a pall, and the acceptance 
 of a misfortune which could not be escaped had 
 deadened hope, cheery voices sang to the breeze, 
 and prophecies of certain victory filled the ship. 
 Yards were trimmed, sails hoisted with taut leech, 
 and sheets hauled aft, till every thread of canvas 
 did its share in speeding the Halcyon over the 
 sunlit, foam-crowned sea. 
 
 Isabel, listless, and weary with the burden of 
 many cares, came on deck during the forenoon 
 watch, and, after scanning the breezy waters, said 
 to Bentley, when he joined her, 
 
 " What a blessing it is to feel the ship moving 
 once more, to know we are not doomed to remain 
 here forever ! " 
 
 " Like a second Flying Dutchman off the 
 Cape," answered Bentley. " No, that is over, for
 
 A DARK NIGHT. 
 
 175 
 
 the calm is dead. But, frankly, our luck has 
 been what is usually found in these waters, 
 though I suppose none the easier to bear for 
 that reason. Do you think I could persuade 
 your father to come on deck ? " 
 
 " Not now ; though he is better already, he 
 would not leave his room, and sent me to drink 
 in, as he said, the energy and freshness. But the 
 calm has really ended ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes, the worst is gone, for even a gale is not 
 so bad as a calm. One may burn our lives, but 
 the other reaches the same end by rusting them. 
 What is better now, we are heading well to the 
 north'ard, and laying our course." 
 
 For the past week, save for the rough naviga- 
 tion required, Captain Waite had left the man- 
 agement of the ship to Coffin, and accepting the 
 calm as inevitable, seemed to take an interest 
 only in his book, and in trying to decipher 
 esoteric triangles and squares, which Bentley, 
 sadly enough, recognized as the mystic symbol- 
 isms of a form of spiritual research, to which 
 Waite could not bring the training nor opportu- 
 nities even of the veriest neophyte. When the 
 breeze was found, the Captain simply gave the 
 course to be steered, and, to avoid further inter- 
 ruptions, entered his room and locked its door. 
 Fortunately, Coffin assumed a wide liberty of
 
 * DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 interpretation in his instructions, and before noon 
 the Halcyon was reeling under the breeze with 
 all the canvas she could comfortably carry. 
 
 About seven bells, Coffin said to Bentley, 
 " Tears to me, Colonel, she's going f some, laying 
 her course, too, with a little to spare, and knocking 
 off a good ten knots, or I'm a howling cow-boy." 
 After looking around the horizon with half-closed 
 eyes, he added, " She's scoffing latitude, too, and 
 I think the wind is sure to hold, with too tight a 
 grip, perhaps, for down there to the south 'ard it 
 looks as if we might have a change of some 
 kind. It will bring more squalls, anyhow, for 
 we're just about inside of hurricane latitudes, I 
 reckon ? " 
 
 "Yes, these are hurricane regions ; we are where 
 the first branch begins to curve, at this season 
 but the laws of cyclones are fairly well-known, 
 and the ship is staunch enough eh ?" Bentley 
 replied, half questioningly. 
 
 " The Halcyon is as staunch as wood and iron 
 and copper and good locust trunnels can make a 
 ship, and the Captain, he's a prime hand for tack- 
 ling cyclones knows all their dodges, that is," 
 Coffin continued, lowering his voice and looking 
 about cautiously, " used to know, and does now 
 if nothing has gone wrong." 
 
 Bentley, who understood Coffin's meaning, took
 
 A DARK NIGHT. I y-r 
 
 two or three turns on the deck, and asked medi- 
 tatively, 
 
 " You notice a great change, then ? " 
 
 "I've sailed with him offand on for twenty years, 
 deep-water voyages and all, and learned what I 
 know from him ; but he's not the same man, and 
 hasn't been the whole voyage. No, sir'ree, not the 
 same John H. Waite, who was the best-found and 
 smartest master-mariner out of the Port of New 
 York. He's been queer on this point of spirit- 
 ualism ever since his wife died, two years gone 
 this month ; but he's been worse this whole 
 voyage. No harm meant, Colonel, but couldn't 
 you freshen the nip of his memory he's got 
 responsibilities and here's an owner on board. I 
 don't like the look of things, sort of feel it in 
 the air and in my bones, as if something was 
 brewing, and we might get it, before night, right 
 butt-end on and the size of a regular ring-tailed 
 snorter of a blow." 
 
 Bentley promised to do as Coffin wished, and 
 after this kept as close a watch upon the naviga- 
 tion as he could without exciting comment. 
 
 The fears of the mate were not verified; as 
 the Halcyon, except for a rain squall or two in 
 the dog watches, ran along speedily and with 
 good weather all that day and night. The 
 barometer was high, the wind dry and bracing, 
 
 12
 
 lyg A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 and the atmosphere very transparent. By noon of 
 the next day she had logged one hundred and 
 eighty-six knots, and the captain's reckoning put 
 her about one hundred and eighty miles E. S. E. 
 of Hatteras. 
 
 Between two or three o'clock Bentley noticed 
 a sudden fall in the barometer, and soon after- 
 ward there were unmistakable evidences of a 
 change ; the upper regions of the sky grew dark, 
 the soft cirrus clouds gave place to a veil of white 
 and feathery mist, which spun in a ghostly 
 aureole, the air became humid, and the heat 
 oppressive. Before two bells in the first dog 
 watch great plumes of gray and white waved 
 above the sea, and to the northward and eastward 
 a nimbus cloud brooded. The threatening ap- 
 pearance of this storm-bank was indescribable, 
 for it seemed as if, in its slowly developing but 
 irresistible path, it would enfold everything with 
 nameless horrors ; its upper part was formed of 
 rounded and cone-shaped clouds, from which 
 scud and squall whirled angrily in all directions, 
 and its base, black as the Arctic night, was hid- 
 den with suggested terrors below the horizon. 
 Presently it began to rise until it reached the 
 zenith, and then with a downfall of rain, as if the 
 flood gates were loosed, it dominated the heavens. 
 The water was a sickly green, the sun set in a
 
 A DARK NIGHT. 
 
 179 
 
 band of coppery sky, and as the twilight was 
 blotted out by the angry cloud, the gale whistled 
 mournfully, rain squalls tore to the right and left, 
 and the sea, broken by opposing wave crests, 
 swept turbulently to the gloomy south. 
 
 No one slept that night. 
 
 At two in the morning the wind was blowing a 
 gale from the southeast, and when the gray dawn 
 faintly lighted the tossing sea, the wind shifted 
 in heavy squalls to the eastward. As Bentley 
 entered the cabin to get his coffee, he met the 
 Captain looking wild-eyed and dishevelled, for 
 he had passed the night on deck or in the 
 cabin, pouring over his mystic books. He 
 addressed Bentley abruptly, though his tone 
 was composed. " From my reckoning, Colonel, 
 and from what I have learned in other ways," 
 he added this hesitatingly, " I put the ship 
 about here." He pointed out a place on the 
 chart over one hundred miles to the eastward 
 of Hatteras, and continued, " I have worked 
 back, and, as you know, the log-lines and glasses 
 have been verified ; we have been careful about 
 her logging, and so I am reasonably certain of 
 the position ; but, would you mind running over 
 my calculations ? " 
 
 Bentley took the log-slate, and working up, 
 independently, the dead reckoning from the noon
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 of the day before, arrived substantially at the 
 same result as the captain. 
 
 " Well," said Waite, with renewed confidence, 
 when Bentley gave his result, " that being the 
 case, we ought, by noon, to be about here," and, 
 measuring off the distance with the dividers, and 
 shaping a course with the parallel rulers, he 
 pricked upon the chart the assumed place of the 
 ship. " That, you see, gives us plenty of sea- 
 room. To me, this blow looks like the begin- 
 ning of a cyclone, and, if it is, I shall try and 
 take advantage of it ; of course, I cannot tell 
 exactly in what direction it is moving, but, from 
 the shifting of the wind to the left, I think we 
 are in the manageable semi-circle, and out of its 
 direct path." 
 
 There was no doubt in Bentley's mind that 
 Captain Waite had determined correctly the 
 character of the storm, and, so far as could be 
 expected, his position in it ; so he replied, cheer- 
 fully,- 
 
 " I am sure you are right, and we have both 
 seen too much of this sort of thing to fear any 
 danger." 
 
 " I am glad you agree with me," answered 
 Waite, " for I have been studying this threaten- 
 ing storm as carefully as I can, on insufficient data. 
 But all cyclones are dangerous, and this may be
 
 A DARK NIGHT. 1 $ l 
 
 what I was warned of at Genoa ; the danger I 
 was to look out for on the voyage home." 
 
 " But, and pardon me, Captain, for asking you, 
 are you sure that the assumed longitude is 
 right ? " asked Bentley. " You know dead reck- 
 oning is not always reliable." 
 
 " Doubly sure ; so sure, that I would stake 
 my life on it," he answered, sternly. 
 
 "And you would not stand off shore a little 
 longer, until you could get some observations ? " 
 
 "No, for I know Mr. Marsden is already dis- 
 satisfied with the length of the voyage. There 
 is not a chance that we have overrun our log- 
 ging this I know, and in more ways than one. 
 Besides, if this is a cyclone, we might run into 
 its centre." 
 
 When Bentley reached the deck, he found both 
 the mates on watch. Coffin was standing by the 
 weather-rail, carefully conning the ship, and 
 Niles was stretching life-lines along the main 
 deck, for the sea was heavy, and the ship was 
 pitching and rolling viciously. The sky was a 
 dirty gray and washed-out black, save where the 
 whitish arc, which had formed in the east, was 
 warmed into a mass of lurid red vapor. 
 
 Bentley called Coffin to leeward of the mast, 
 and said, in as low tones as the howling of the 
 gale permitted,
 
 1 82 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 " The Captain is better, and I think the time 
 for decisive measures has not arrived ; but, be 
 ready at any moment, and, in the meantime, if 
 there is a crisis, Marsden will put the manage- 
 ment of the ship in your hands." 
 
 Coffin, who had not taken his eyes off the tug- 
 ging and straining topsails and trysail, nodded 
 his head in approval, and walked to windward. 
 About noon, the weather was so much worse, 
 that he sent for Bentley, and said, 
 
 "There is no use in going on any longer 
 this way, Colonel ; I know as well as you we're 
 not sure of our position, and ought to be laid-to, 
 with our head off shore instead of trying to run 
 north ; or, for a while, to take the wind on the 
 starboard quarter, and get clear of the storm 
 circle. I have suggested this to the Captain, but 
 he says it's not time for either plan yet, and what's 
 worse, he declares he is waiting for the proper 
 permission. The truth is, he is not right, and, 
 though it looks like mutiny, if Mr. Marsden 
 gives the word, I will take charge, under his 
 orders." 
 
 Bentley knew how strong must be the impulse 
 which lead an honest man and a true sailor, like 
 Coffin, to prescribe such a desperate remedy; 
 but he felt that the mate was only doing his 
 duty. Before he could frame an answer, Waite
 
 A DARK NIGHT. 
 
 183 
 
 came on deck, and ordered all hands to be 
 called. 
 
 At this time, the ship was heading about North, 
 on the starboard tack, the gale blowing between 
 East and E. N. E. As soon as the people 
 were at their stations, the Captain waited for a 
 smooth time, and, putting his helm up, wore ship 
 to the westward, and brought the Halcyon on the 
 port tack, with her head about S. by E. The evo- 
 lution was performed in a thoroughly seamanlike 
 manner, and, though the wallowing of the ship, 
 when she fell off into the trough of the sea, was 
 so great as to bring Marsden and Lorrimore into 
 the cabin, with nervous premonitions of danger, 
 still the smiling face and cheery words of Bent- 
 ley, reassured them. 
 
 Sail was gradually reduced, and, as the 
 Halcyon was laid-to, her splendid qualities were 
 manifested, in the ease with which she met the 
 seas that, before, had made her stagger and reel 
 like a drunkard. At four o'clock, the wind was 
 blowing a violent gale from E. N. E., and by 
 sundown this had become so heavy, that all the 
 square sails were furled, and the ship was lying- 
 to under her storm main trysail only. At eight 
 o'clock, she was struggling desperately in the full 
 fury of a hurricane, which rushed madly from 
 N. E., and so mercilessly did this rage, that her
 
 1 84 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 starboard beams were under water, and, with a 
 fast drift to leeward, she was wreathed by spray 
 that dashed in white sheets over the bow and broke 
 aft in blinding torrents. 
 
 About nine o'clock, the gale lulled for an inter- 
 val, and there followed a few moments of sudden 
 calm, so disquieting in the horrors it seemed to 
 foretell, that, even the previous roaring of the 
 cyclone was less terrible. The ship rolled vio- 
 lently in a confused sea, which boiled around 
 her; the tops of the waves were sheared by 
 an irresistible force, and engulfing them arose 
 the walls of black clouds, and the skies that ap- 
 peared to rest upon the mastheads. Then, with 
 a roar, like the shooting of a thousand thun- 
 derbolts in a clear sky, the gale, without the 
 slightest warning, shifted to the northward and 
 westward. 
 
 As the Halcyon slowly staggered upright, to 
 face this new onslaught, a heavy sea boarded her 
 over the weather-bow. With cracking timbers and 
 ripping bolts, the forward bulwarks were battered 
 into fragments, the galley was gutted and unroofed, 
 the forecastle stove-in, and a life-boat swept to 
 leeward. The spare spars and water-casks were 
 torn from their lashings, and started aft with such 
 fury, that several of the crew, caught in the 
 wreckage, were seriously injured, among therk,.
 
 A DARK NIGHT. ^ 
 
 and so badly, that he died in an hour the 
 kindly-hearted negro cook. The Halcyon shiv- 
 ered and reeled under the blow, and, when it 
 seemed she would never right again, rose slowly 
 on the following wave, and painfully freed her- 
 self from the tons of flooding water. 
 
 As soon as he saw the immediate danger was 
 past, Bentley rushed to the cabin, and found that 
 little damage had been done, though the water 
 was slashing from port to starboard, and forcing 
 its way, in a slow stream, through the lee scup- 
 pers near the pantry. 
 
 Marsden called Bentley into his room, and 
 muttered, hoarsely, 
 
 " What do you think of all this ? I mean the 
 weather, and our chances ? " 
 
 With the usual caution of sailors in speaking 
 to landsmen, Bentley replied, 
 
 " It is a very heavy gale, but not dangerous ; 
 that sudden shift was, I think, its culmination." 
 
 " Where do you make the ship to be ? " 
 
 " By the captain's last reckoning, we were one 
 hundred miles from Hatteras; since then, we 
 have drifted to the southward, and off shore." 
 
 " Tell me frankly, Bentley : is this a cyclone ? " 
 
 " I think a cyclone has passed us, though at no 
 time have we been out of the manageable semi- 
 circle, as it is called."
 
 !86 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 Marsden seemed better satisfied, and asked 
 Bentley to let him know before midnight the 
 exact state of affairs. By eleven o'clock, the 
 wind had hauled around the compass, and was 
 blowing heavily, but steadily, from the East, and 
 there was a continued rise of the barometer, suc- 
 ceeding the slight change that had preceded the 
 cyclone's fiercest attack two hours before. 
 
 Waite, who kept the deck, was nervously 
 walking between the mast and the weather-taff- 
 rail, as more sail was set, and, finally, said, 
 
 " Mr. Coffin, call all hands ; we must lose no 
 more time. I am going to wear ship." 
 
 The Halcyon was put about, and, having been 
 brought well up to the wind, on the starboard 
 tack, with her head North, sail was gradually made 
 to fore and main lower topsails, double-reefed fore- 
 sail, forestorm staysail, and main trysail. Coffin 
 and Bentley did not approve of this change, but, 
 at the worst, it was only a difference of judgment, 
 in which the captain might be right. 
 
 Bentley went to the cabin soon afterward, and 
 was followed by Waite, who sank wearily in a 
 lashed chair, and said, 
 
 " It has been a hard blow, but I think we have 
 weathered it. I shall run on this course till day- 
 light, for we have plenty of room, and are well 
 clear of the Gulf Stream; then, if the storm has
 
 A DARK NIGHT. 
 
 I8 7 
 
 not broken, I shall put her head off shore, until 
 I can get a decent observation." 
 
 Lorrimore, who had not left his room since 
 eight o'clock, slided along the wet cabin floor, 
 and asked, 
 
 " Shall I be in the way on deck ; it seems 
 haunted down here." 
 
 " Haunted ? " the captain cried, " haunted, yes, 
 but not as up there. Go, if you will, though 
 you are better below, where the lamp is." 
 
 When Lorrimore had taken his pallid face and 
 burning eyes into the night, Waite said to 
 Bentley, 
 
 " I suppose you think I have not shown a 
 proper knowledge of these storms, and that I 
 should have run off with the wind on my star- 
 board quarter, until I could work around, or get 
 into smooth water. But I was afraid of being 
 squeezed between the cyclone's track and the 
 coast, or shoved into the Gulf Stream, which 
 would have confused my reckoning, and so I 
 have done as my judgment told me was best." 
 
 As he rose, and went toward the cabin door, 
 he said, brokenly, in a voice rilled with a misery 
 and sadness which haunted Bentley for days, 
 
 " It has been a hard gale and a dreary burden 
 in every way, for at times my reason has strug- 
 gled against my warnings. But I am only the
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 creature of fate, an instrument for some purpose, 
 a punishment for some sin. Why ? Who can 
 say? Thank God, the morning will make all 
 things plain." 
 
 With a sudden impulse, he came to Bentley, 
 and grasped his hand. 
 
 " If I could only tell you what I have suffered 
 in these last days, you would pity me. There is 
 a higher power than man's in all this, and, be- 
 lieving as I do, I have tried only to perform my 
 whole duty." 
 
 He groped his way by table and bulkhead to 
 the door, and then passed quickly, as the shadow 
 of a blown-out light goes, into the gloom of the 
 gale and night. 
 
 Bentley entered Marsden's room and found 
 him staring with sleepless eyes into the darkness. 
 At his request Bentley lighted the night-lantern, 
 and, omitting the hallucinations of Waite, told all 
 that had occurred. The invalid listened intently, 
 and said, 
 
 " I am glad it appears more promising. I own, 
 Bentley, I am nervous to-night, and must ask 
 you not to leave me just yet, as I have something 
 to say." 
 
 Marsden looked pale and old. The corners 
 of his mouth were drawn with a suggestion of 
 repressed pain, his nose was pinched, his un-
 
 A DARK NIGHT. 
 
 shaven face had a two days' stubby growth of 
 fluffy gray hair, the pupils of his eyes were 
 dilated, and his hands and the muscles of his face 
 twitched nervously ; when he was not gesticulat- 
 ing, as was his habit, he held the ring finger of 
 the left hand tightly clasped in his right. 
 
 He did not speak for a few moments, and when 
 he began, it was in a low, hoarse rumble of throaty 
 words. 
 
 " Bentley, if anything should happen, not only 
 now, but at any time, you will look out for my 
 daughter, will you not ? I mean, at all sacrifices. 
 I have been thinking seriously of many things, 
 and, if not too late, I want to make such restitu- 
 tion as is left to me. This is not," he cried, with 
 the old defiance of creed and dogma other than 
 the belief in himself and the rule of life which 
 centralized him as the only certain fact in the 
 universe, "this is not, from any fear of what may 
 happen, for as I have lived a heathen I shall die 
 one, but because I realize there are debts which 
 I owe, as I would owe for a dinner I had eaten. 
 One of these expiations is my treatment of you." 
 
 Bentley tried to calm him with words of grate- 
 ful acknowledgment, of considerate kindness, but 
 the stricken old man, eager with the desire of 
 doing at last something which did not include 
 himself in its rewards, went on with easy words,
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 " If it is any consolation to you, as it is cer- 
 tainly a relief to me, let my say, that I was pur- 
 blind in the foolishness of my vain interference, 
 but now you are free to win Isabel when you 
 will." 
 
 Marsden lifted himself painfully from his pillow, 
 and taking down a small tin box from the shelf 
 above the locker, handed it to Bentley, and said, 
 
 " But there is a greater expiation due than yours. 
 I can not sketch to-night even the rude outlines 
 of the story, but you will find it among other 
 papers in this box. This restitution has to do 
 with one chapter in my life, which, in your new 
 relations, you have the right to know." 
 
 He spoke slowly, and turned his face with a 
 shudder from the air-port, where the water dashed, 
 as the Halcyon sank in the hollows of the wave. 
 
 " Years ago, and in California, I was married. 
 I was only a boy at the time, and unfitted, by the 
 life I had led, for any such responsibility. The 
 marriage was a foolish, mad impulse, but, in the 
 end, a sad one for the woman who had trusted 
 me. After a year or more I deserted my wife, at 
 a season when even the brutes are kind, crazy 
 with the hunger for wealth and unreasoning in a 
 resentment of which Heaven knows she made 
 no part against a life that was throttling me. 
 There was a daughter born, and I feel it was
 
 A DARK NIGHT. l ^ l 
 
 the last blow to the misery I had made, that my 
 wife died without seeing me hold the little child 
 whom she had prayed would wed our lives in the 
 love which neither priest nor pity had saved. 
 
 " Carmenita, my wife, died as she had lived, a 
 good, true, woman, who deserved a better fate, 
 and with her last prayers for me and for her 
 baby. 
 
 " Those prayers have been my Nemesis. When 
 I awoke to a realization of my cowardice, I 
 searched everywhere, but never could find this 
 child, for her grandfather had sworn this should 
 be my punishment when youth and folly were 
 gone; and that curse, hissed at me from a hopeless 
 death-bed, has followed and struck often, but 
 never so cruelly as to-night. I ask your aid to 
 make this expiation, for I am old and sick. Will 
 you help me to undo the wrong ? " 
 
 Bentley said, slowly, 
 
 " As I love Isabel, I will try to solve the mys- 
 tery of her sister's life and death." 
 
 "Should she be alive," Marsden muttered, 
 brokenly, " tell her of this repentance, and bring 
 her to the home and love she has, doubtlessly, 
 never known. If she be dead, bury her by the 
 side of the mother who died for her and me. 
 I owe something to Catlin ; let his body be 
 brought home, for however wrong he may have
 
 192 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 been, he was sick and poor and human, and I did 
 not do my duty by him. At least, I might have 
 saved him from hunger and the prison walls. And 
 for the other that wretched woman who came into 
 our lives for no harm we had done, for no reason 
 that will ever be revealed let her memory be for- 
 gotten and forgiven : it will be a charity." 
 
 Marsden sank wearily in the narrow berth, and, 
 after muttering a half-framed sentence, begged 
 Bentley to bring him a glass of water. As he 
 crossed the dreary cabin, the Colonel saw, under 
 the swaying, smoking lamp, the sleeping figure of 
 Lorrimore. His pose was one of utter prostra- 
 tion, but, as the pallid face, resting upon the out- 
 stretched arms, was turned from the vibrating 
 circle of yellow light, it bore a look of tender- 
 ness which Bentley had never seen before. 
 Going first to Lorrimore's room, he took a 
 blanket, and wrapped it gently about the tired 
 sleeper. 
 
 Marsden sipped the draught Bentley had 
 mixed with whiskey, and, when his mind re- 
 acted under the stimulant, raised himself in the 
 bed, and continued 
 
 " Tell me, Bentley, what did you ever learn of 
 her history of Marion Darlington ? " 
 
 He spoke the name with an effort, for so com- 
 pletely had he tried to .put her out of his life,
 
 A DARK NIGHT. 
 
 193 
 
 since the night in Paris when he shrank beneath 
 the hatred of her dying message, that, at his re- 
 quest, Bentley never mentioned her. 
 
 " Catlin's sister," said Bentley, " wrote me all 
 she knew, or could discover, and it was sad 
 enough. I will show you the letter to-morrow." 
 
 " No, no ! " Marsden cried, " tell me about her 
 to-night, and we will try, hereafter, to forget her." 
 
 " Much of her story," responded Bentley, 
 " was true. She loved Catlin, as only these grave, 
 quiet women, can love, and, for a time, they were 
 engaged to be married. But all this, by slow 
 degrees, ended when he met Isabel. With this 
 change, her nature seemed to alter, and, after a 
 season of dreadful illness, she came back to a life 
 which had only one purpose to win the love 
 she had lost. Little of her early history is 
 known. She had a modest income, which was 
 paid monthly by a Catholic banker in New York, 
 until she came of age, when the principal was 
 given her. It was, he said, a trust left by one 
 whose name could not be revealed. Her life 
 must have been a sad one, for her earliest remem- 
 brances, as she told Miss Catlin, were of strangers, 
 and of harsh, unhomelike, religious schools; and 
 she had hungered for a kind word for some one 
 to love her but none of these ever came until 
 she met Philip." 
 13
 
 i 9 4 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 " Poor girl, poor girl ! " exclaimed Marsden ; 
 "perhaps, after all, we have misjudged her." 
 
 " When I sent the news of her sad death, Cat- 
 lin's sister sought the banker, and asked his advice 
 as to her burial. Then, for the first time, it was 
 learned that her name was not Marion Darling- 
 ton, but Maria del Gado." 
 
 What terror had stricken the night? What 
 echo of perils passed was here? What judg- 
 ments were to come ? What was the sudden 
 agony which pierced this stricken cynic with 
 spears, and filled his mouth with the mist of 
 wine and hyssop. 
 
 " Maria del Gado ! " he gasped. " Merciful 
 God ! and her grandfather ? " 
 
 " Was Felipe del Gado, of Casa Blanca." 
 
 " My God, my God, whom I have denied, pity 
 me ! Oh, Bentley, Bentley ! the child I left with 
 strangers, the woman who died alone, whom I 
 killed she she was the daughter I never knew 
 she was Isabel's sister." 
 
 Bentley put his arm about the fainting form, 
 and slowly lowered it to the narrow bed. Into 
 the worn face an ashen pallor was creeping, and 
 in the wearied eyes was burning dim the light 
 of the tired soul, which had striven so long 
 between the sins of this incarnation, and the 
 ambitions of the spirit, waiting now so eagerly
 
 A DARK NIGHT. 
 
 195 
 
 for its aeons of rest, and for the judgment of 
 God. 
 
 With one last effort, life seemed to come full- 
 flooded to the dying penitent, but it was the use- 
 less flutterings of a netted bird in the grasp of 
 the fowler. Pressing a hand to his raging 
 heart, he shrieked, 
 
 " Help me ! help me ! for God's sake ! My 
 daughter, my Isabel ! " 
 
 Bentley rushed to the opposite room. A quick 
 knock aroused Isabel, and she answered with a 
 tenderness born of the dreamland, wherein they had 
 been walking happily hand-in-hand together. But, 
 before he could utter a word, a cry of awful mis- 
 ery mingled with the roaring of the gale, and 
 awoke, with sudden start, the sleeping Lorri- 
 more. Guided by the moans which followed 
 this supplication for help, he entered Marsden's 
 room, just as Isabel sprang into the cabin, and, 
 with the life-blood choking her heart, turned 
 affrightedly to Bentley. 
 
 " Your father come ! " It was ' all that he 
 dared to say. 
 
 When they entered, all was still, and, by the 
 dimly-lit and spectral bed, Lorrimore, with out- 
 stretched hand, bade them stand ; and then, point- 
 ing to the eyes, which were staring sightlessly 
 into the gloom, he whispered,
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 It is too late too late ! He is dead ! " 
 
 So Henry Marsden died, and, as the doctors 
 had feared, by the shock which the culmination 
 of all these miseries gave. The Sybarite found 
 the treasure which the Stoic said not all the world 
 could rob him of the treasure of death here 
 where life itself was a tragedy and earth was 
 denied him. 
 
 Oh, vain purpose, vain prayer, of this mis- 
 spent life ! Not upon the daughter he loved 
 so well did his dying eyes look, nor was the 
 touch of her hand upon his paling cheek, 
 when the end came; not with his prayer's ful- 
 fillment, nor with his sin's expiation ; for, as the 
 peace of the passing away stole into his soul, 
 as sleep after labor, his clouded vision saw only 
 the face of a stranger. 
 
 He died at midnight, and the answer to his 
 cry was the muffled echo of the Halcyon's bell, 
 ushering in the grief-stricken day and ringing, 
 storm-smitten, above the requiem of the gale. 
 
 But with the chime of the bell, the roaring 
 of the blast seemed stilled, and, then, a shock, 
 unheard, unknown before, thrilled the Halcyon 
 from stem to stern, from truck to keelson ; and, 
 above the flapping of splitting sails, the battering
 
 A DARK NIGHT. 
 
 I 9 7 
 
 of falling spars, and the rending of broken bul- 
 warks, above the challenge of sea and gale, and 
 the anguished cries of men, there was borne on 
 the wings of night another message of death. 
 
 For the Halcyon's days were done, and, with 
 bursting seams and riven timbers, she settled 
 slowly into a grave of sand, and opened, as if 
 pleading for pity, her gaping wounds to the seas, 
 which wrecked her on the treacherous shores of 
 home.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 STOUT HEARTS. 
 
 THE Halcyon had sailed her last voyage. The 
 waves which had enfolded her keel, the 
 breezes which had wooed her sails, the skies 
 which had piloted her by day and night all had 
 conspired to kill her in the end. 
 
 After the first cry of the watch, all other sounds 
 were lost in the gale which had hunted so hard 
 and run down so surely this harmless quarry ; 
 but now there burst upon the night the roar of 
 breakers which scaled the crumbling bulwarks, 
 and rushed aft with lips of foam to riot insanely 
 in the harvest death had planted for their reaping. 
 
 Bowed by the weight of her sorrow, Isabel 
 failed to realize the meaning of this new disaster, 
 or welcomed it as a solution for the future which 
 was so hopeless. Lorrimore dashed wildly into 
 the cabin, and then on deck, while Bentley took 
 from the rack a life preserver and secured it about 
 the moaning woman, who knelt by the bedside 
 of her father. 
 198
 
 STOUT HEARTS. 
 
 I 99 
 
 Closing the sightless eyes and covering the 
 body with a sheet, he whispered a word of hope to 
 Isabel, and then made his way to the deck above. 
 
 It was a scene of misery and ruin. 
 
 The firm settling of the hull, the resistance it 
 offered to the onslaught of the sea, and the strength 
 and persistency of the breakers, told his trained 
 eyes that the Halcyon was doomed. She was im- 
 bedded in the shallows for her whole length, and, 
 as she lay slightly heeled to port, with the 
 starboard broadside opposed at a small angle to 
 the wind, the waves poured in torrents over the 
 bows, rending bulwarks and houses and driving 
 aft and to leeward a mass of dangerous wreck- 
 age. The light spars, carried away by the first 
 shock of the grounding, hung up and down the 
 topmast and lower rigging, or trailed alongside 
 in a tangle of gear, which let them surge upon 
 each wave to act as battering rams against the 
 frames amidships. 
 
 Bentley climbed the starboard mizzen rigging, 
 and peered into the darkness for a signal of hope 
 or rescue, but in vain ; and though he waited 
 until their last rocket blazed over the water, it 
 illumined an arc where only the rolling waves, the 
 whirling foam-crests, and the pools of floating 
 spars and top-hamper, shared the hopelessness of 
 the situation.
 
 200 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 At first ths blows of the breakers had not been 
 unlike the bufferings of the sea when the Halcyon 
 was battling with the gale in the open, but now 
 each assault made the vessel tremble in every 
 timber, and forced from their fastenings knee and 
 frame, beam and futtock, plank and bracing. 
 Fortunately the Halcyon was strongly built with 
 seasoned wood and honest men's honest iron 
 work, so at the worst she might be expected to 
 hold together for a few hours more. 
 
 Bentley looked for the crew, but it was not 
 until his eyes grew accustomed to the blackness 
 of the night that he saw under the weather rail a 
 little group of silent men. In this were the mates, 
 and, as Bentley's figure showed against the back- 
 ground of the rigging, Coffin carefully worked 
 his way aft. When he reached the shrouds, the 
 mate said, with his usual composure, 
 
 " Oh, that's you, is it, Colonel ? How are you ? 
 Glad to see you. Well, it's pretty much what I 
 feared, and a bad business, too, yes, sir'ree a bad 
 business for all hands." 
 
 " Where is the captain ? " asked Bentley. 
 
 "We don't know. I've been everywhere I 
 dared to go, but can't find him ; and the chance is 
 the old man has gone overboard. Peterson, there, 
 whose lookout it was, saw him when the ship 
 struck, standing by the head stays, and talking or
 
 STO UT HEARTS. 2 O I 
 
 singing loudly ; and he reckons, Peterson does, 
 that the first sea which boarded us and carried 
 aft the eleven who are saved, swept the captain 
 overboard with the rush of falling spars." 
 
 " Where do you suppose we are ? " inquired 
 Bentley. 
 
 " That's hard to tell exactly, but somewhere 
 between Hatteras and Cape Henry. You see, 
 Colonel, this is a bad beach along here, and what 
 with our over-running in the Gulf Stream, and 
 the gale, and the unsartin reckoning, we may be 
 anywhere along the coast." 
 
 It was characteristic of Coffin, that in this par- 
 tial enumeration of the causes which had led to 
 the wreck, he did not include the most potent ; 
 for with the uncertain position of the ship, the 
 Captain's decision to stand North, instead of keep- 
 ing off-shore until the gale broke or daylight 
 came, was the real reason of the disaster. 
 
 " It is a bad stretch of sand all along from the 
 Virginia Capes to Winyah Bay," Coffin con- 
 tinued. " We may be on the outer shoals of Hat- 
 teras, or, if we got more northing in the Stream, 
 we may have struck on the Wimbles, off Chicka- 
 micomico, and then, again, we may be plum on 
 the beach off Kitty-hawk, for right there you 
 carry deep water straight up to the shoals with- 
 out warning."
 
 202 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 "The gale seems moderating," suggested Bent- 
 ley. 
 
 " Yes, the wind is less, but the breakers are 
 doing the work. I haven't lost my courage, but 
 it looks, Colonel, as if we are pretty well done 
 for. There aren't a dozen people to a quarter 
 section on this beach, and Congress says the 
 nation is too poor to keep the Life-Saving Station 
 open all the year round. The country ain'-t got 
 surplus enough for that, and a few sailors, more 
 or less, don't count as voters. There's not a 
 harbor in the whole stretch, from the Inlet to 
 Chesapeake Bay, a hundred miles as the crow 
 flies." 
 
 " How many boats are left ? " Bentley asked, 
 because he knew so far as human life might find 
 a refuge, that the ship could not hold out long 
 after daylight ; certainly not with any assurance 
 which could tempt them to await a hope of relief 
 from the shore. The bowsprit had disappeared, 
 and the foremast was so sure to go by the board, 
 that the destruction caused by its ripping and 
 tearing would give an entrance to the breakers 
 which nothing could resist. It was useless and 
 impossible now to cut the mast away, and their 
 only hope lay in speedy escape. 
 
 "There are two boats," answered Coffin, "both 
 good ones, even for this weather, but we can't
 
 STOUT HEARTS. 203 
 
 launch them with this sea, making a clean breach 
 over us, though, by good luck, all that 'ere top- 
 hamper has fallen to wind'ard." 
 
 " If the ship would hold till daylight, the shore 
 people might do something, but~both are poor 
 chances," said Bentley, " and I believe our only 
 hope is in the boats. But," he added, quickly, 
 " you are in command, and I will obey your 
 order cheerfully." 
 
 Coffin thought a moment, slipped down to lee- 
 ward, went a little way up the mizzen rigging, and 
 looked at the sea. Bentley followed him to the 
 rail, and when the mate descended, showed where 
 the ship made a lee amidships, and urged that 
 with good luck the boats might be gotten over- 
 board safely. 
 
 Coffin answered, " You're right, Colonel ; it is 
 our only hope ; the old barky is going to pieces 
 fast, so we'll have a try at the boats. There is a 
 fighting chance and we're just the ones to take it." 
 
 Bentley watched admiringly the hardy seaman 
 as he pulled himself by the life-line to the bul- 
 warks, where the men were gathered ; and 
 through the gloom, as the breakers retreated to 
 gather strength for another sally, he saw the 
 group quickly, and with new hope, rush and 
 slide to leeward of the house on which the 
 boats were stowed. Though a hazardous duty,
 
 204 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 it was undertaken cheerfully, for as Bentley de- 
 scended to the main deck, he heard the ringing 
 cheers of the sailors, as they worked with a will 
 under Coffin's skillful direction. 
 
 When Bentley entered the cabin, Lorrimore 
 was sitting upon the table perfectly self-possessed 
 and stolidly whittling a piece of rounded wood, 
 the plug of a water-breaker apparently, which 
 must have been washed aft in the litter floating 
 about the deck. 
 
 " A cool hand that," thought Bentley, "and, I 
 am afraid, an unfeeling one." He said aloud, 
 " Mr. Lorrimore we are going to abandon the 
 ship and the crew are trying to launch the boats. 
 You had better make, at once, the preparations 
 you think necessary, and then stand by to lee- 
 ward." 
 
 Lorrimore raised his eyes from the shining 
 knife blade, though without stopping his work 
 upon the curious little block, and answered, cour- 
 teously, " Thank you, I am ready now." 
 
 Bentley hesitated a moment, as if in doubt, 
 before he entered the room where the dead man 
 lay. In her awful vigil Isabel's head rested 
 upon the bosom of her father, and she was still 
 sobbing with a grief which found its only expres- 
 sion in low moans. He lifted her gently to the 
 camp chair standing by the bedside, and said,
 
 STOUT HEARTS. 
 
 " God help and pity you, for I know what this 
 all must mean ; but he is happier and better, for 
 all is over for him, all the strife and fear, all the 
 trouble and pain. He has found the peace which 
 all our lives must seek." 
 
 She could not answer, though his pity and 
 consolation were her only refuge now. " There 
 is a duty you owe to him and to yourself, for you 
 are powerless here," he pleaded. " Will you not 
 come with me ? You may trust me, for in his 
 last moments I promised to save you at all sacri- 
 fices. Help me keep my word with the dead 
 with your dead and mine; for with his dying 
 words, almost, he gave you to me, and here with 
 the same death everywhere about us, I can tell 
 you that I love you." 
 
 She rose from the chair, and, lifting the shroud- 
 ing sheet, kissed the pale lips, and then in silence 
 went into the cabin with him. As he was leav- 
 ing her, Bentley said, 
 
 " The ship is stranded where, no one knows, 
 but if we can launch the boats we are not without 
 hope. You will be brave, and, for his sake, bear 
 up in these awful moments. If we are to die, it 
 shall be together ; if we are to live, let it be my 
 right to save you." 
 
 But she made no answer, for his words gave 
 her no realization of the perils encompassing
 
 2o6 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 them. All she knew was the agony of her father's 
 loss and the utter loneliness to which even death 
 could add no new terrors. Unconsciously her 
 head fell upon his shoulders, and, in her need for 
 help and strength, she wept as if her heart would 
 break. 
 
 " He was so good to me, so good to me," she 
 sobbed, "and now he will never know how much 
 I loved him." 
 
 Bentley encouraged her with tender words, 
 told what preparations she should make for the 
 desperate trial before them, and, leaving her, went 
 to Lorrimore, who had now entered his room. 
 
 " I will put Miss Marsden in your care, Mr. 
 Lorrimore, until I return. The ship's danger is 
 very great, so great, that this may be our last 
 night on earth ; but whatever the peril may be, 
 it is not immediate. Can you trust me not to 
 desert you, and will you remain here unquestion- 
 ingly until I return ? " 
 
 Lorrimore twirled in his thin fingers the little 
 plug he had shaped so idly, and answered, " My 
 trust in you, Colonel Bentley, is perfect, and I 
 shall remain here until your return." 
 
 Lorrimore blew vacantly through the hole he 
 had made in the centre of his piece of whittled 
 wood, and twirled it by the strings, which, with 
 curious interlacings, he had fitted in grooves about
 
 STOUT HEARTS. 
 
 207 
 
 its edges. He seemed to do this as if his mind 
 were wandering with aimless purpose, though sud- 
 denly he added, as Bentley left him, "And here is 
 my hand upon the promise. Trust me, and, if your 
 services are needed elsewhere, do not come until 
 the last moment. It will be dreary watching for 
 her, alone, with the dead." 
 
 Lorrimore's hand was cold, and it trembled in 
 Bentley 's grasp, though these were the only signs 
 which showed he knew the misery surrounding 
 them. He waved a salute to Bentley, as the lat- 
 ter was leaving, and, then, as proof of his pledge, 
 crossed the cabin, and sat by Isabel's closed door. 
 
 When Bentley reached the deck, he found that 
 the work of destruction was even more rapid than 
 he had feared. The men were working cheer- 
 ily at the boats, and had rigged a couple of small 
 tackles, which assisted materially. Bentley joined 
 them, and, with willing hands, and words of 
 sailor comfort and encouragement, put new life 
 into the undaunted, though weary seamen. Upon 
 inquiry, he learned that Coffin had detailed the 
 people for their stations the second mate and 
 four of the crew being ordered to go in the 
 whaleboat, and the rest in the large life-boat with 
 himself. As the former was lowered to the water 
 and manned, Coffin cried, 
 
 " Now Niles, don't forget, when you get clear
 
 2o8 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 of the ship, pull dead to leeward, and, if you land, 
 wave a lantern ; there's one stowed there, in the 
 stern sheets." 
 
 At this moment, a wave struck the ship, and 
 lifted the boat almost even with the rail; as it 
 was falling into the trough, a sharp knife severed 
 the line which held it, but not before a figure, 
 unrecognized by any one, was seen to leap from 
 the bulwarks. Who it was, no one could tell in 
 the darkness. As the next sea caught the surg- 
 ing boat upon the upward curve, it rose again, 
 but, almost at the mizzen rigging, and, then, as if 
 by enchantment, rushed into the gloom and was 
 gone. 
 
 It was now after three o'clock, and the heavens 
 were as black, and the gale blew as hard as at 
 midnight, but the wind was steadier, and had 
 shifted more off shore. When Bentley again 
 climbed the rigging, he saw, in the west, one 
 faint, tremulous star, and, as he gazed intently 
 through the darkness, he made out, astern, the 
 blackness of a bulk, of a rounded mass, which was 
 different, in a faint degree, to the flat background 
 of gloomy sky ; and, once, when the roar of gale 
 and sea were stilled for an instant, he heard the 
 echoing boom of waves beating somewhere upon 
 a hard barrier of sandy beach. As he came out 
 of the rigging, Coffin was awaiting him.
 
 STOUT HEARTS. 209 
 
 " I believe there's land of some sort astern ; I 
 thought, too, I saw a high sand-hill, but it may 
 have been my imagination." 
 
 " Where away was it ? " asked Coffin. 
 
 "All around the ship, astern the hill broad 
 off the starboard quarter." 
 
 " Well, we will pull for it," Coffin replied. 
 " And, I say, Colonel, as the boat is nearly ready, 
 will you bring the others." 
 
 Bentley entered the cabin, and called to Lor- 
 rimore. He waited a moment, and, receiving no 
 answer, called again. But Lorrimore had disap- 
 peared, and, as he turned impatiently to Isabel's 
 room, the door was quickly opened and closed. 
 As she came toward him, Isabel hesitated, crossed 
 to her father's door, and, standing there for a mo- 
 ment, lifted her hands, as if in an agony of sup- 
 plication. 
 
 She was closely veiled, and wrapped in a 
 hooded water-proof, and as Bentley took her 
 hand it was icy-cold, and to his words of en- 
 dearment she could trust herself to give no an- 
 swer. Her head was bent, her veil was tightly 
 drawn, and, as they struggled through the water 
 surging upon the decks, she trembled with an 
 emotion which made her almost helpless. The 
 sea had subsided a little to leeward, and the 
 staunch boat, by careful management, rode safely 
 14
 
 2io A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 alongside. Willing hands lowered Isabel from 
 the rail, but, as Bentley was about to follow, he 
 stopped, and, with a sudden fear, exclaimed, 
 
 " Where is Lorrimore ? " 
 
 There was no answer at first, and then, the 
 sailor who had cut the bow-line of the whale- 
 boat, said he had seen Lorrimore swinging him- 
 self into the second mate's boat, just as it shoved 
 clear of the ship. 
 
 "Are you sure?" asked Bentley, "sure it 
 was Mr. Lorrimore? for this desertion would 
 be murder." 
 
 " Yes, sir," asserted the man, " the gentleman, 
 he come aft on a run, grabbed the painter, and, 
 as he jumped, sir, landed all in a heap in the fore 
 sheets, sir." 
 
 The rest of the crew took their places, Coffin, 
 last of all, and, when the boat rose upon the next 
 wave, the line was cut, ready oars pulled clear of 
 the vessel, and, as the long swell swept onward, 
 the frail craft was folded in the arms of the angry 
 night. As it fell into the hollow, abreast of the 
 mizzen chains, Bentley thought he heard a human 
 voice crying for help. But he reasoned he must 
 be mistaken, for there was no one left on board, 
 and Lorrimore had clearly betrayed his trust, at a 
 moment when a craven only would have thought 
 of himself.
 
 S TO UT HEAR TS. 2 1 1 
 
 Steadily and surely, the men pulled to leeward, 
 the undaunted Coffin grasping his steering oar with 
 the sweep and grip he had learned in his whaling 
 days. The waves were black and silent, though 
 at times, a crest, suddenly bitten by the wind, 
 would curl viciously into the boat, and blind the 
 rowers with spray. 
 
 At first, Coffin steered by the star, which shone 
 brightly in the west, but he soon shouted with 
 his old-time chuckle, 
 
 " It's all right, lads; there's the shore, and Niles 
 is waving his lantern. Cheerily now, it's only a 
 long pull and a strong one, and we'll land the 
 lady yet." 
 
 Bentley had spoken no word to the grief- 
 stricken woman beside him, nor had she voiced 
 a fear, or shown her sore distress. He had 
 watched with eager eyes, thinking only of her 
 safety, the darkened wall ahead, and, when he 
 saw, searing like lines of fire, the crescent of 
 white beach and the circling sweep of the lan- 
 tern, he put his arm about her and whispered 
 that the crisis had come. Tightening the straps 
 of her life-preserver, he said, tenderly, 
 
 " Remember, cling to me ; we will live or die 
 together." 
 
 She did not answer, but, with bent head, leaned 
 upon the gunwale, as if saying a prayer.
 
 212 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 The narrow crescent broadened into a curve of 
 foam and billow, and the roar of the surf echoed 
 seaward, with the thunderous reverberations of 
 storm-clouds penned in resounding hills. 
 
 "Steadily, lads, steadily," cried Coffin, quickly, 
 but with no tremor in his tone. " Mind your 
 oars, there, for'ad. Steadily, my sons, and stand 
 by to back, when I pass the word." 
 
 A mighty wave, hungry for the beach, lifted 
 the boat on its unbroken crest, lapped it joyously, 
 sang of the rest and peace ahead, lured it swiftly 
 and surely shoreward, and then with cruel sport 
 would have dashed it upon the beach, had not 
 Coffin checked its onward rush, as the billow's 
 crown became a dark and broken hollow and its 
 base a cataract of foam and sand. But there 
 could be no hesitation now, and, with a last cheery 
 word of comfort, the boat dashed landward upon 
 the incoming wave, steered straight to the point 
 where the rope-joined lines of rescuers stood 
 almost in the tumble of breakers and the drag of 
 undertow to receive them. 
 
 In clarion voice, which rang as a bugle above 
 the bursting sea, Coffin cried, 
 
 " Stand by ! now lads jump." As the crew 
 sprang clear, the steering oar broke like a sapless 
 reed dried in winter's frost, the comb of the wave 
 turned the bow to the left and upward, and as the
 
 STO UT HEAR TS. 
 
 receding water rushed brokenly seaward, the 
 boat capsized and its hapless occupants were 
 struggling with the unreasoning instinct of self- 
 preservation in the surf. 
 
 All save Bentley and Coffin ; and when their 
 rescuers afterward looked at them lying on the 
 shore, they saw the wrists of the two insensible 
 men were red and bleeding with salt-steeped 
 wounds, for the nails of the woman had clung as 
 acid bites and scars. 
 
 Upon recovering consciousness, Bentley found 
 himself lying upon a ridge of sand which crowned 
 the isthmus. He was powerless to move, though 
 as the flooding blood came back to heart and 
 brain, his first thought was of the woman he loved. 
 
 He heard the voices of the fishermen drag- 
 ging further up the beach the life-boat taken by 
 right of might from the locked doors of the 
 deserted station ; he saw the moving figures of 
 men, and, as he looked upward, he beheld a 
 waning moon shining through a rent veil of 
 ragged clouds, the light of many stars, and, to 
 the northward, the flying masses of scud and 
 storm bank ; above all, he heard the measured 
 beating of the breakers, and the long and sibilant 
 swish of the undertow, dragging seaward the 
 waters which tried impotently to clasp the land 
 they had sought with such longing.
 
 214 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 Presently strange faces, but friendly ones, bent 
 over him, and one was kneeling by Coffin, chaffing 
 his hands and forcing between his teeth a draught 
 of spirit. When Bentley's strength came back, 
 he lifted himself, and saw just beyond the flutter- 
 ing dress and cloak of a woman. 
 
 He could not stand as yet, but, with desperate 
 effort, crawled painfully to the place, and took 
 the white, cold hands in his. That she was not 
 dead, the moanings which rose and fell with every 
 slow breath told, and he thanked God, even for 
 this. The crescent moon sailed like a fairy shal- 
 lop into a silvery sea, and, as the waves of light 
 flooded the glistening sand, Bentley saw on the 
 pale forehead a long, deep cut, from which the 
 blood was trickling. He raised her head with a 
 touch as gentle as a woman's, and turning the 
 face to the moonlight, tenderly lifted the blood- 
 sodden veil from the wound which the keel of the 
 overturned boat had given. 
 
 The cool air lingered lovingly upon the lips 
 and eyes, and, as these moved feebly, the flooding 
 glory of the night filled her face, and he saw not 
 Isabel, but Lorrimore. 
 
 " Lorrimore ?" Bentley muttered wildly, " Lor- 
 rimore ? what can this be ! " And then rising on 
 his knees and bending over the dying man clad 
 in woman's guise, he cried in anguish,
 
 STOUT HEARTS. 
 
 215 
 
 "Tell me, for God's sake, Lorrimore speak, 
 man tell me, where is Isabel Marsden ? " 
 
 The pallid face flushed, the burning eyes 
 turned to the ship and the sea that was rending 
 it, and the wan lips murmured faintly, 
 
 " There ! In the Halcyon's cabin, strapped to 
 her bed, and, God forgive me, I have done it." 
 
 " In the Halcyon's cabin," shrieked Bentley, 
 " and left by you to die. Then go to the hell 
 which waits you." 
 
 His grasp tightened about the throat of the 
 dying man as he bent his knee upon the heav- 
 ing breast ; but the tired hands faltered, his eyes 
 saw only the blackness of a new despair, and, as 
 the gray dawn was breaking, Clifford Bentley fell 
 insensible by the side of the wretch he had almost 
 died to save.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DAWN. 
 
 THE cool air revived Bentley, and staggering 
 to his feet he found that the day had dawned. 
 He looked about in a stupor, and, as the broad 
 beams warmed into blue the gray of the upper 
 sky and the breakers caught a golden radiance as 
 they rolled landward over the shallows, he saw 
 the Halcyon, not a mile from shore, still opposing 
 her bruised body to the sea. 
 
 The mizzen mast alone was standing, and not 
 only were the bow timbers gone, but almost to 
 the waist the frames stood with wide separations, 
 which showed that the ship was fast going to 
 pieces. Though the gale had blown out, and the 
 fresh breeze which succeeded had not added to the 
 size of the billows, the wind was still strong enough 
 to keep the sea in angry motion. 
 
 There was not a moment to be lost, and, with 
 
 the strength of desperation, Bentley staggered to 
 
 the beach where the fishermen were wheeling 
 
 the life-boat to the station. " Keep fast the 
 
 216
 
 DAWN. 217 
 
 boat," he called to them, "for Heaven's sake, 
 keep fast." 
 
 His hearers waited in wonder, as, panting for 
 breath and hoarse with excitement, Bentley stood 
 before them. 
 
 " In that ship," he cried, "bound to the bulk- 
 heads and left to die by a murderer, is a woman, 
 is Miss Marsden. Dead or alive, we must find her. 
 Who will go with me ? " 
 
 Who ? all ! 
 
 The sea-bruised crew, the hardy fishermen, man 
 and boy, strong and weak, not one faltered. 
 Even the dead awoke to life, it seemed, in the hope 
 of sharing in such a deed, for, most pleading of 
 all, one voice sobbed, 
 
 " Beyond any of them, and first, take me." 
 It was the haggard face of Waite. " Take me," 
 he repeated, in the incoherency of his clouded 
 mind. Niles came to his old commander, and 
 said, 
 
 " Not yet Captain, but by and by ; you must 
 sleep now." 
 
 " Yes, you are right," Waite answered, " but, 
 remember, I was the last to leave my ship. I 
 had to spring from the bulwarks to do it, but I 
 was the last, as the captain should be." 
 
 It was he, who, rushing in delirium from his 
 hiding place, had been taken for Lorrimore.
 
 2i8 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 Selecting the sturdiest of the volunteers, the 
 boat was manned, and, with a veteran surfman at 
 the steering-oar, sent safely seaward. Its fight 
 was a rough one, a struggle of brawn and brain, 
 of muscle and heart, but it was sure. 
 
 Stroke by stroke the boat climbed the billows, 
 flashing on their spray-lipped crests, hidden in their 
 sombre hollows, but always onward. The meas- 
 ured strokes rang in rhythm, the blades dipped 
 deep, rose high, and gleamed with diamond clus- 
 ters, and the steering-oar, leaving a serpent's trail 
 in the water, held, with steady course, the shining 
 bow straight for the stranded vessel. The cres- 
 cent of the shore faded into a fringe of foam, the 
 sand beach narrowed into a silver line, and, at 
 last, the Halcyon, agleam in the sunlight, showed 
 what the gale had done. 
 
 Her bow pointed at an angle off shore, the 
 sudden shifting of the helm to escape just as the 
 breakers were seen, having turned her nearly 
 eight points from the course she had been steer- 
 ing. As the life-boat entered the pool of wreck- 
 age, it was hauled alongside to leeward by a 
 trailing halliard, and, when it reached a place 
 amidships, where the bulwarks were carried away 
 close to the deck, Bentley and two of the crew 
 jumped, as the boat rose, into the water still 
 flooding the' lee gangway.
 
 DAWN. 2I9 
 
 Bentley entered the cabin alone. 
 
 All the doors were open save one, and, as he 
 slowly pushed this back, he saw, lying on the bed, 
 the unconscious figure of Isabel. 
 
 Was she alive or dead ? 
 
 In her pallor, in the untrembling lips, in the 
 stilled breathing, it seemed to be death. The 
 hair hung in clusters about her face, and upon 
 her motionless bosom rested the rounded plug 
 which Lorrimore had fashioned so quietly. It 
 was bitten and ragged with splinters, and the 
 strings were wet, and red with blood ; the bleed- 
 ing corners of the mouth, the bruised and torn 
 skin, and the purple indentations in her cheek 
 and neck, showed where the twine which held it 
 had been tied and twisted. 
 
 Calling the two fishermen, Bentley cut the 
 cords which bound Isabel, and, then, as the dead 
 are carried, they bore her to the bulwarks, where 
 the boat, into which they lowered her, was waiting. 
 
 Bentley stood for a moment in silence, and 
 then said, resolutely, 
 
 " My lads, there is one other duty to perform. 
 Come with me." 
 
 They entered the dismantled cabin, and wrap- 
 ping Marsden's body in the linen of the bed, 
 brought it to the boat, and placed it by the side 
 of the daughter he had loved so well.
 
 220 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 "Let them not be divided in death," Bentley 
 whispered, "if death it be." 
 
 Dropping clear of the Halcyon, the boat swept 
 shoreward, and, as Bentley turned for a last look 
 at the ship which had brought him so much pain 
 and joy, a wave, mightier than its fellows, burst 
 through the weakened frames and rushed aft with 
 terrible force. As it receded, he saw the mizzen- 
 mast, freed from its stays and shrouds, reel from 
 side to side, and, with a sudden cant to leeward, 
 plungfe overboard, carrying with it, or smashing 
 in the fall, the cabin he had left a moment 
 before. 
 
 When the draught which Bentley forced be- 
 tween the purple lips of Isabel warmed the flut- 
 tering heart, he detected the faintest thread of 
 pulse ; and, as they neared the shore, a faint glow 
 suffused her finger-tips, the lips trembled with 
 the thrill of reviving animation, and the eyelids 
 twitched nervously under the steady glare of the 
 sun. 
 
 Landing beyond the heavier breakers, in a 
 little bight behind a hillock of sand, which, fur- 
 ther out, curved, like a sickle, into an angry bar- 
 rier of shoal, they carried the still unconscious 
 girl to the hut furthest from the station, and, upon 
 the ridge where Bentley had been placed, they 
 laid the body of Marsden. Next to him, by a
 
 DA WN. 
 
 grim chance, was the upturned face of Lorri- 
 more, stilled now to all fear, for in the compan- 
 ionship of the solved mystery there was no 
 dread for either. 
 
 The unsparing labors of the fisherman's wife 
 fanned the dull ember into a gentle flame of life, 
 and, at last, when Isabel opened her eyes, remem- 
 brance dawned, and, though her voice refused to 
 utter the words she wished to speak, her eyes 
 gleamed with a desire of questioning, that was 
 sad in its impotency. 
 
 " There, there, deary, try and sleep," said Mrs. 
 Winston, "everything is right; they are all 
 saved all, except four of the poor sailors." 
 
 The woman soothed her with words of homely 
 comfort, and as Isabel turned to the window, 
 where the sunshine brought into fantastic light 
 and shadow the rude timbers of the room, she 
 saw the bright sky, the turbulent sea, the silvered 
 sand, the moving figures, and Bentley. Then 
 she closed her eyes, and, overcome with fatigue 
 and excitement, fell into a restless slumber, that 
 was filled with dreams of winds, and waves, and 
 death. 
 
 Bentley sat with bowed head at the door of 
 the hut until Mrs. Winston said the crisis was 
 over ; then he stole quietly up the beach, and, 
 falling upon his knees behind a sand dune, offered
 
 222 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 a thanksgiving for the mercy which was greater 
 than the sparing of his own life. 
 
 As he looked about him, while he rested until 
 his emotions were under control, he saw for miles 
 and miles a sandy isthmus, flanked by outlying 
 islands and inner sounds, and broken by scattered 
 clumps of trees, patches of scrub and wide areas 
 of stunted woodlands. Everywhere were the 
 hard beaches, the clusters of sand, the shallow in- 
 lets, and the sea. To the southward a conspicu- 
 ous hill arose, and, beyond, long stretches of bald 
 beaches glistened on barren wastes ; to the west- 
 ward was a wooded island fringed by marsh and 
 shoaling water, which the tides joined by slues 
 and sedgy inlets, and framing all were the blue 
 hills of the broken mainland. 
 
 For miles the shore was littered with wreck- 
 age, and in the distant waves derelict spars and 
 timbers were taking the glistening sunlight on 
 their sides. This was the shore of North Caro- 
 lina, as he had learned, and the hill was Nag's 
 Head, the dreariest and saddest of all the places 
 which await mariners upon our long stretch of 
 southern coast-line. 
 
 When Bentley came to the fishermen and sailors, 
 unconscious of the loving and grateful eyes look- 
 ing out at him from the hut, he saw that the bodies 
 had been gathered in one spot. Winston said,
 
 DAWN. 223 
 
 " Five in all, Colonel, not countin' him as we 
 uns brought ashore. Hadn't we better bury 
 them ? " he added, pointing to a little enclosure 
 back of the shore, where in a rude cemetery the 
 dead and often nameless sailors cast up by the 
 sea were laid to rest within touch of its spray 
 and breeze. 
 
 " Yes, and this one first," answered Bentley, 
 indicating Lorrimore ; " let us pity him who 
 failed to pity us." 
 
 " Hadn't my wife better look out for her," sug- 
 gested Winston, who had heard the story imper- 
 fectly. 
 
 " No, he is a man dressed as a woman, and 
 God forgive him for some wicked purposes of his 
 own." 
 
 Coffin had recovered his strength and was 
 devoting himself to Captain Waite, who clung to 
 the mate as a child does to its mother. Niles 
 and some of the crew were busy making rude 
 tallies by which the dead could be recognized 
 hereafter, and the carpenter and the others were 
 fashioning rough boxes for the bodies. 
 
 Bentley took his old place for a moment out- 
 side of Isabel's door, and when he learned she 
 was sleeping easily, followed the men who were 
 carrying the dead to the God's acre beyond. As 
 he stood on the ridge looking at the crumbling
 
 224 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 wreck of the Halcyon, Winston came to him 
 hurriedly, and said, 
 
 " Colonel, if my wife can be spared from the 
 young lady, she had better go over to the ceme- 
 tery and look out for the one you told we uns 
 to bury first." 
 
 "Your wife! Why?" 
 
 "Well it's more her business than mine, more 
 natural like." 
 
 " More her business than yours ? " inquired 
 Bentley, wondering at this strange persistency. 
 
 " Yes, Colonel, that 'ere man is a woman, after 
 all."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DAYLIGHT. 
 
 TWO days afterward Isabel was carried to the 
 mainland, and in a fortnight she was able to 
 sit upon the wide veranda of a hospitable manor 
 house, watching the gulls circling in the Sounds 
 and the fish leaping from the shining waters. 
 Health and strength came so slowly that the be- 
 numbed mental processes took up lazily their old 
 orbits of action ; and for long hours of the per- 
 fect days she would try with vain endeavor to 
 put together, piece by piece, the facts which 
 made the mosaic of these later days of trial. 
 
 She could recall nothing of her rescue, nor of 
 the first shock of the wreck, for with sad itera- 
 tion her memory ebbed and flowed about the 
 misery of her father's death and the horror of the 
 crime which had left her to die alone in the 
 stranded vessel. Beyond these two truths, all else 
 was formless and dim in the mist of dreams. 
 
 With the vivifying balsam of piny autumn 
 woods and of salt winds transmuted in the alem- 
 15 225
 
 22 6 * DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 bic of barrier trees, health breathed upon her, 
 and little by little, in responsive gratitude for 
 nights of restful sleep and days of peaceful idle- 
 ness, the mind awakened to a clearer knowledge 
 of the past. 
 
 Bentley had secured quarters in a farmhouse 
 near the shore, and day by day brought her the 
 simple gossip of those honest people, and, with 
 every tender device love could invent, sought to 
 lead her, by quiet roads, into the lands of happi- 
 ness she had known of old. He never spoke of 
 the wreck, nor of her peril, but of the days when 
 first they met. 
 
 In October, when the blue hills of the old 
 North State were bright with the gold and 
 ruby of the leaves, and the cool, star-gemmed 
 nights gave a more cheerful glow to the pine- 
 knots crackling on the flaming hearths, she 
 made Bentley tell all he knew of her father's 
 death, and of the scenes that followed. As he 
 finished, she said, with tear-filled eyes, 
 
 "And it was you who saved me, and my 
 dreams were true ? " 
 
 He lifted her white, blue-veined hand, and 
 kissing it, answered, 
 
 " No ; it was the inscrutable wisdom of God 
 which wrought the miracle." 
 
 As soon as she was strong enough for the
 
 DA YLIGHT. 
 
 227 
 
 journey, they went, one day, to the fatal isthmus 
 across the Sounds of Croatan and Roanoke. Of 
 the Halcyon, not a timber was left, but of the 
 gale who will ever measure the agony of the 
 bruised lives, or the gratitude the rescued felt for 
 what these hardy fisher people had done. 
 
 Isabel went to the cemetery alone, and when 
 Bentley joined her, he found the graves strewn 
 with the wild flowers she had brought ; and, on 
 those of Marsden and of Lorrimore, alike, rested 
 the crosses of golden-rod she had wrought with 
 such loving care. 
 
 In after-days, Bentley told her, that of all the 
 gracious deeds in her life, none could equal this. 
 
 That night, as they watched the sparkling logs, 
 and heard the mutterings of a rising gale, she 
 revealed the mystery of her last hours on ship- 
 board. 
 
 After Bentley left her, she had fallen wearily 
 upon the bed, mindless of peril, and conscious 
 only of her father's death. Finally, recalling her 
 promise, she was about to rise, when she heard her 
 door quickly closed and bolted. A firm grasp and 
 a cruel blow forced her upon the bed, and, in a 
 moment, two quick turns of a thick cord lashed 
 her helplessly to the framework of the berth. 
 She tried to free herself, but a noose, deftly 
 slipped over her hands, drew them, extended, to
 
 22 8 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 the headboard, and, as she screamed for help, a 
 little rounded plug, with a breathing-space bored 
 in its centre, was pushed into her mouth, and by 
 the quick strain of looped strings was twisted 
 and tied back of her head, and around her neck 
 and arms. 
 
 She was bound and gagged. 
 
 It was a devilish deed, performed neatly, and 
 with the despatch and skill such as sailors and 
 surgeons alone possess. 
 
 In the darkness, she could see that a man was 
 putting on her dress and cloak, and, then, the still- 
 ness of the room was broken by a voice, which she 
 recognized as Lorrimore's. He seemed to be in- 
 sane, and with a fierce exultation which, in the days 
 of convalescence even, rang in her ears with por- 
 tents of awful evil to come, cried, 
 
 " So at last ! at last ! and after all this wait- 
 ing ! Do you know me ? I am Marion Darling- 
 ton, the woman whose life you wrecked. I have 
 followed you with patient waiting, ready for any 
 desperate chance, and fate has given it 'at last. 
 I have you now, so sure, that the angels of 
 Heaven cannot save you. As Philip Catlin died, 
 so shall you die ; as my love was taken from 
 me, so shall yours be lost to you. Once, in the 
 first madness of despair, I tried to kill myself, but 
 the woman whom I saw go to her awful death,
 
 DAYLIGHT. 22Q 
 
 filled me with horror, and I fled, only to plan and 
 plan, through sleepless nights, how I might reach 
 you. 
 
 " There lies the dead body of the man who 
 spurned me for you ; he wanted you only for 
 himself in life, and he shall have you in death. 
 And such a death ! almost as sad and hopeless, 
 as my poor life has been. Outside, with no 
 thought but of you, is the man who would save 
 you at the peril of his life he, he, will rescue 
 me, and leave you to a fate none wjll know in all 
 time. Should I reach the shore alive, who will 
 tell that I came in your disguise, when, in a mo- 
 ment, where the night is dark, and the current 
 strong these clothes, cast to the sea, will leave 
 Lorrimore saved, and Isabel Marsden gone, as 
 if she had never been. Listen ! do you hear 
 him it is Bentley, calling for Lorrimore, and 
 awaiting you. Ah ! how you would sue for 
 pity, could you speak. But did he who is dead 
 did any one pity me ? No ! and now I shall 
 leave you with the sea, that pities none ; leave 
 you dying with your dead, and to the mercy I 
 have always known." 
 
 Isabel remembered but little more. After the 
 first agony of fear had passed, she freed her lips, 
 by a supreme effort, from the plug, and screamed for 
 help, but when this was unanswered, she fell into
 
 230 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 a stupor which trembled for hours on the border- 
 lands of eternity. It was the echo of this pitiful 
 cry which Bentley heard, as he bent to soothe 
 the shrinking form beside him in the boat. And 
 she who heard it, in joy, knew not that it was the 
 voice of her sister, calling as one deserted in the 
 wilderness. 
 
 In the spring Isabel and Bentley were married, 
 but not until Marsden had been laid at rest in the 
 peaceful cemetery of the village from which he had 
 departed with boyish ambition to make the world 
 his own. Catlin, too, was buried in his old home, 
 just outside the circle where rest those who died 
 for their country during the great war in which 
 he had done his part so well. 
 
 To that distant home in California, Bentley 
 accompanied the body of the poor girl whose life 
 had been without savor and grace ; and as it was 
 laid, with prayers and tears from friends of old, 
 by the side of the mother, whose only fault it 
 was to have loved so blindly, no one save the 
 priest knew, that beneath the stone which marked 
 the resting-place of Maria del Gado slept she who 
 had been called Marion Darlington. 
 
 But as the twilight lay like a benediction upon 
 the quaint cemetery, a bronzed and bearded gen- 
 tleman knelt in the sanctified ground and placed 
 upon the fresh earth a wreath of immortelles in
 
 DA YLIGHT. 
 
 231 
 
 memory of the love that Pedro de Saldo cher- 
 ished for the unwedded bride of his youth. 
 
 Bentley found awaiting him upon his return 
 two letters ; one from Coffin inviting him to the 
 launching of the new Halcyon, of which he was 
 to be the master, and promising that he would 
 get a rare welcome from Captain Waite, who had 
 given up the sea and was too hard at work selling 
 fish and lumber to bother his brain with cob- 
 webs and spun-yarn-twistings about spirits. 
 
 The other letter was from Girard. 
 
 It began with many felicitations after the French 
 official manner, and was most formal and precise 
 until it reached the pith of the story where it warmed 
 into a friendly blaze of semi-professional confi- 
 dence. It told in detail the search for Camille 
 Desmoulins, and how, at last, the mystery had 
 been solved by the confession of an attendant at 
 the Morgue, whom Girard had hunted down. 
 Hoffman, sparing neither time nor money in the 
 search, one day recalled old Mother Blinder, 
 the chiffoniere, who had reared the missing 
 woman. 
 
 " So, so," said the hag in her hovel on Mont- 
 martre, " that pretty butterfly is gone. Where is 
 my amber heart then ? the one I gave her, and 
 which was blessed by the Pope. Ha ! ha ! my 
 braves, that was a rare joke, but she believed me,
 
 232 
 
 A DESPERATE CHANCE. 
 
 and she swore never to give it up. Find that, 
 and there you will see my sainted child." 
 
 The attendant at the Morgue had been arrested 
 upon a petty charge, and in his pocket the amber 
 amulet was found. He finally confessed that he 
 had taken it from the body of a woman, in whose 
 dress he had slipped a handkerchief belonging to 
 an American lady. 
 
 " What was the bribe ? Twenty napoleons. 
 
 "And her other instructions ? That he should 
 do this whenever a body so disfigured as to be 
 unrecognizable should be found. 
 
 "What was the name upon the handkerchief? 
 Marion Darlington, he recalled it, though foreign, 
 because he had been paid to inform a gentleman 
 who lived in the Rue Chaillot when such a corpse 
 was brought from the river. 
 
 "The name of this gentleman? M. Clifford 
 Bentley; and in proof he submitted the address 
 in his memorandum book. We have sent the 
 scoundrel to Cayenne, and Hoffman has erected 
 over the grave you bought a monument to the 
 memory of cette chere Camille, to the woman who 
 killed herself in a drunken frenzy which she 
 called love. 
 
 " And the other the Madame Darlington ; 
 she, surely, if alive, is plotting harm, but who can 
 tell when or where it will strike or, by my faith,
 
 DA YLIGHT. 
 
 233 
 
 why ? For there, even we, who live in mys- 
 teries, fail." 
 
 ******* 
 
 And so, silently and irresistibly, rule fate and 
 chance, and thus surely do our deeds decree, not 
 always the roads we travel, but the goals we 
 reach at last. Fate and Chance men call them, 
 but with what different meanings. Not for him 
 is their truth made plain who holds that human- 
 ity evolves only in predetermined mode, nor for 
 him who denies that chance is aught but the 
 effect of a cause unknown. For Fate and Chance 
 are what we make them, and to each of us is 
 every thought or action sure to bring a certain 
 loss or gain. 
 
 Of the dead, pity Marion Darlington above all ; 
 for in the unfolding light of immortality she spoke 
 those repentant words which saved the tender 
 woman who placed upon the grave of the sister 
 she knew not, the cross of charity and of love. 
 
 THE END.
 
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