Evening Star Newspaper, February 6, 1897, Page 19

———— THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1897-24 PAGES. THE GUNS FOR CUBA a BY CUTCLIFFE HYNE. = ee Written for The Evening Star. (Copyright, 1807, by Cuteliffe Hyne.) “The shore part must le entirely with you, sir,” said Capt. Kettle. “It’s mixed up with the foreign enlistment act and the Alabama case, and a dozen other things which may mean anything and ex between jail confiscation, and my head isn’t big ugh to hold it. If you'll be advised by sir, you'll see a real first-class solicitor, and stand him a drink, and pay him down what he asks right there on the bar coun- ter, and get to know exactly how the law of this business stands before you stir foot in it. The law here in England,” said the little man with a reminiscent sigh, “Is a beastly thing to fall foul of; it’s just wickedly officious and Interfering; it’s never done kicking you, once It's got a fair start; and you never know where it will shove out its ugly hoof from next. No, Mr. Gedge, give me the states for nice, comfertable law, where a man can buy It by the yard for paper money down, and straight pistol shooting is always re- | membered In his favor.” The yourg man who owned the S. S. Sultan of Bcrneo tapped his blotting paper impatiently. “Stick to the point, Kettle. We're in England row and have nothing whatever to do with legal matters in America. As for your advice, I am not a fool; you can lay your ticket on it I know to an inch how I stand. And I may tell you this, the shipment fs arranged for.” “I'd like to see us cleared,” sald Capt. Kettle, doubtfully. No one will interfere with the clearance. The Sultan of Borneo will leave here in coal, consigred to Havana. A private failings could have been eliminated, the little Skipper with the red peaked beard, would certainly have been, from an own- er’s point of view, the best commander sailing out of any English port. No man ever wrenched such a magnificent amount of work from his hands. But it was those other fatlings which kept him what he was, the pitiful knockabout shipmaster, living from hand to mouth, never certain of his berth from one month's end to another. - That afternoon Capt. Kettle signed on his crew, got them on board and with the help of his two mates kicked the majority of them into sobriety; he received a visit and final instructions from Gedge at 6 o'clock, and by nightfall he had filled in his papers, warped out of dock and stood anx- fously on the bridge watching the pilot as he took the steamboat down through the crowded shipping of the river. His wife stood under the glowing arc lamp on the dock head and waved him good-bye through the gloom. Capt. Kettle received his first fright as he dropped his pilot just outside the Tyne pier heads. A man-of-war’s launch steam- ed up out of the night and the boarding officer examined his papers and asked ques- tiens. The little captain, conscious of hav- ing no contrabané of wer on board just then, was brutally rude; but the naval of- ficer remained stolid and refused to see the insults which were pitched at him. He had an unpalatable duty to perform; he quite sympathized with Kettle’s feelings over the atter, and he got back to his launch thanking many stars that the affair had erded so easily. But Kettle rang on his, engines again with very unpleasant feel- irgs. It was clear to him that the secret Wes oozing out somewhere; that the Sultan of Borneo was suspected; that his course to Cuba would be beset with many well- armed obstacles; and he forthwith made his first ruse out of the long succession which was to follow. He had been instruct- ed by Gedge to steam off straight from the Tyne to a point deep in the North sea. where a yacht would meet him to hand over the consignment of smuggled arms. But he felt the night to be full of eyes, and for a Havana-bound ship to leave the usual steam lane which leads to the English chan- rel was equivalent to a confession of her yacht will meet her at sea and transship the arms cut of sight of land. “Tyne coal for Cuba? They'd get their purpose from the outset. So he took the parallel rulers end penciled off on his chart the stereotyped course which just clears ON THINGS GENERALLY. coal there from Norfolk, Va., or else Welsh steam coal from Cardiff or Newport.” “It seems not. This contract was placed | leng before a ship was asked for to pees | gle out the arms.” “Well, it looks fishy, anyway.” cangt nelp that,” said Gedge, irritably. m telling you the naked truth, and if truth as vsual looks unlikely, it’s not my | favlt. Now, have you got any more objec- ticns to make? ‘No, sir,” said Capt. Kettle; “none that I fee at presen ‘Very well, then,” said Gedge. “Do you care to sign on as master for this cruise, or are you going to cry off?" a “They'll hang me if I'm caught,” Kettle. “Not they. They'll only talk big, and the British consul will get you clear. You nee} they daren’t hang an Englishman for mere smvggling in Cuba. And, besides, aren't I offering to raise your screw from 12 pound a month to 14, so as to cover the risk? However, you won't get caught. You'll find everything ready for you; you’ 1 slip the rifles ashore, and then you'll steam on to Havana and discharge your coal in the ordinary humdrum way of business. And there’s @ 10 pound bonus {f you pull the thing off successfully. Now, then, cap- tain, quick; you go or you don’t 5 “I go.” said Ket gloomily. “I'm a poor man, with a wife and family, Mr. Gedge, and I can’t afford to lose a berth. But it's that coal I can't swallow. I quite believe what you say about the contract. Only it doesn’t look natural. And it’s my belief the coal will trip us up somewhere before we're done, and bring about trouble.” “Which, of course, — are quite a strang- said Gedge, slyly. rbon“t taunt me with it, sir,” said Capt. Kettle. “I quite well know the kind of brute I am; trouble with a crew or any other set of living men at sea is just meat and drink to me, and I'm bitterly ashamed of the taste. Every time I sit underneath our minister in the chapel here in South Shields I grow more ashamed. And if you heard the beautiful poetical way that man talks of peace, and kr fields, and golden you'd understand.” nates, yes,” said Gedge, “but I don’t want any of your excellent minister's sermons at second hand just now, captain, or any of your own poetry, thanks. I'm very busy. Good morning. Help yourself to a cigar. You haul alongside the coal shutes to get your cargo at 2 o'clock, and I'll be on board to see you at 6 Good morning.” And Mr. Gedge rang for the clerk, and was busily dictating letters before Kettle was clear the office. otrne Mttle sailor went down the grimy stairs and into the street, and made to- ward the smelling Tyne. The black cigar rested unlit in an angle of his mouth, and he gnawed savagely at the butt with his eyeterth. He cursed the Fates as he walked. Why did they use him so evilly that he was forced into berths like these? As a bachelor, he told himséif with a sneer, he would have jumped at the excitement of it. As the partner of Mrs. Kettle and the father of her children he could have shud- dered when he threw his eye over the fu- week or so she could draw his 1 live sumptuously at the rate y pounds a month. But afterward, caught by some angry Spanish with the smuggled rifles under and shot, or hanged, or im- herwise debarred from earn- at his craft, where would Mrs. Would Gedge so anything » drew the cle. from his lips, tuous’, at the bare idea. lity of the affair he trou- nish government two rival firms red different rates of freight ac- sk, and be was employed those who paid the higher If there was any right or wrong ut the question it was a purely private between Mr. Gedge and his God. t was as impersonal in the iness a the ancient Sultan of Borneo ; he was a mere cog in some com- ma ery; and if he was earning it was by piety inside the chapel and not by professional exertions said across the filthy Tyne, and walked down alleys and squalid streets, where coal dust formed the mud and the air was sour with forgign vapors. And as he waiked he champed stil! at the unlit 1 brooded over the angularity of ts But when he passed between the of the dock company’s premises and the policeman on me over him. Hé threw elgar stum) tightened his lps all thoughts of personal matters the door sill. He was Mr. Gedge’s servant; his brain was devoted to furthering Gedge’s Interests, and all the acid of his tongue was ready to spur on those who did the manual work on Gedge's He took ferr: changed words with a change c the ft ship. Within a minute on his arrival on her @ecks, the Sultan of Borneo was being un- moored from the bollards on the quay; within ten, her winches were clattering and bucking as they warped her across to the black straddling coal shoots at the other side of the dock: and within half an hour, the cargo was roaring down her hatches as fast.as the railway wagons on the aa trestle overhead could dis: gorge. The halo of coal dust made day in. to dusk; the grit of it filled every cranny, and settled as an amorphous scum on the water of the dock: and laborers hired by the hour toiled at piece-work pace through sheer terror at their employer. if his other Whitby and Flamboro head; and the Sul- tan of Borneo was held steadily along this, steaming at her steady nine knots; and it Was not till she was out of sight of land off Humber mouth, and the sea chanced to be | desolate, that he starbearded his helm and stood off for the ocean rendezvous. A hand on the foretopsail yard picked up the yacht out of the gray mists of dawn, ard by eight bells they were lying hove-to in the trough. with a hurdred yards of cold gray water tumbling between them. The transshipment was made in two lifeboats, ard Kettle went across and enjoyed an extravagant breakfast in the yacht’s cabin. The talk was all upon the Cuban revolution. ings the yacht’s owner, brimmed with it. “If you can run the blockade, captain, said he, “and land these rifles and the Max- ims and the cartridges, they'll be grateful enough to put up a statue to you. The revolution will end in a snap. The Spanish troops are, half of them, fever-ridden, and all of them discouraged. With these guns you are carrying the patriots can shoot their enemies over the edges of the island into the Caribbean sea. And there ts no reason why you should get stopped. There are filibustering expeditions fitted out every week from Key West and Tampa and the other Florida ports, and one or two have even started from New York itself.” “But they haven't got through,” sug- gested Capt. Kettle. “Not all of them,” Mr. Carnforth admit- ted. “But then, you see, they sailed in schooners and you have got steam. Be- sides, they started from the states, where the newspapers knew all about them, and so their arrival was cabled on to Cuba ahead, and you have the advantage of sail- ing from an English port.” “I don't see where the pull comes in,” said Kettle, gloomily. “There isn't ‘a blessed country on the face of the globe more interfering with her own people than England. A Yankee can do as he darn well pleases in the filibustering line, but if a Britisher makes a move that way,the blessed law here stretches out twenty hands and Plucks him back by the tail before he’s half started. No, Mr. Carnforth, I'm not sweet on the chances. I'm a poor man, and this means a lot to me; that’s why I'm anxious. You're rich; you only stand to lose the cost of the consignment, and if that gets con- fiscated {t won't mean much to you.” Carnforth grinned. “You pay my bu: ness qualities a poor compliment, captain. You can bet your Iife I had money down in hard cash before I stirred foot in the matter. The weapons and the ammunition were paid for at 50 per cent above list prices, so as to cover the trouble of secrecy, and I got a charter for the yacht to bring the stuff out here which would astonish you if you saw the figures. No, I'm clear of the matter from this moment, captain; but I'll not deny that I shall take an in. terest in your future adventures with the cargo—help yourself to a cigarette.” “Then it seems to me,” said Kettle, acid- ly, “that you'll look at me just as a hare set on to run for your amusement.” The yacht owner laughed. “You put it brutally,” he said, “but that’s about the size of it. And, if you want further truths, here's one: I shouldn’t particularly mind if you were caught.” “How's that?” “Because, my dear skipper, ish captured this consignment would want another, and I should get the order. Whereas, if you land the stuff safely it will see them through to the end of the war, and my chance of making further profit will be at an end.” “You have a very clear way of putting it,” sald Capt. Kettle. “Haven't I? Which will you take, green chartreuse or yellow?” “Ah, Mr. Gedge, can you tell me, sir, how he stands over this business?” “Oh, you bet, Gedge knows when to come in out of the wet. He's got the old Sultan underwritten by the insurance and by the Cuban agents up to double her value, and nothing would suit his books better than for a Spanish cruiser to drop upon you.” Capt. Kettle got up, reached for his cap, and swung it aggressively on to one side of his head. “Very well,” he said, “that’s your side of the question; now hear mine. That cargo's going through, and those rebels or patriots, or whatever they are, shall have their guns {f half the Spanish navy was there to try and stop me. You and Mr. Gedge have started about this business the wrong way. Treat me on the square, and I'm a man a child might handle; but I’d not be driven by the Queen of England, no, not with the Eperor of Germany to help her. “Oh, look here, captain,” said Carnforth, “don't get your back up.” “I'll not trade with you,” replied Kettle. “You're a fool to your own interes: “I know it,” said the sailor, grimly. “I've known it all my life. If I'd not been that, I'd not have found myself in such shady company as there is here now.” “Look here, you ruffian, ff you insult me I'll kick you out of this cabin, and over the side into your own boat. “All right,” said Kettle, “start in.” Carnforth half rose from his seat and measured Capt. Kettle with his eye. Ap- parently the scrutiny impressed him, for he sank back to his seat again, with an embarrassed laugh. “You're an ugly little devil,” he said. “I'm all that,” said Kettle. ‘And I'm not going to play at rough and tumble with you here. We've neither of us anything to gain by it, and I've a lot to lose. I belleve you'll run that cargo through, now that you're put on your met- tle, but I guess there'll be trouble for if the Spas- the patriots somebody before it’s dealt out to the pa- triot troops. Gad, I'd like to be some- where on hand to watch you do it.” “I don't object to an audience,” said Kettle. “By Jove, I've half a mind to come wiih ou.” *Cryou'd better not,” said the little sailor, with glib contempt. “You're not the sort that cares to risk his skin, and I can't be bothered with dead-head passengers. “That settles it,” said Carnforth, “I’m coming with you to run that blockade, and if the chance comes, my cantankerous friend, I'll show you I can be useful. Al- ways supposing, that is, we don’t murder one another before we get there.” A white mist shut the channel sea into a ring, and the air was noisy with the grunts and screams of steamers’ syrens. Capt. Kettle was standing on the Sultan of Bor- neo’s upper bridge, with his hand on the engine room telegraph, which was pointed at “Full speed astern;” Carnforth and the old second mate stood with their chins over the top of the starboard’ dodger, and all three of them peered into the opalescent banks of the fog. ‘ney had reason for their anxiety. Not five minutes before a long, lean torpedo catcher had raced up out of the thickness, and slowed down alongside, with the chan- nel spindrift blowing over her low super- structure in white hailstorms. An officer on the upper bridge in glistening oilskins had sent across a sharp authoritative hail, and had been answered, “Sultan of Bor- neo; Kettle, master; from South Shields to the. Havana.” “What cargo?” came the next question. ‘Coal.”* What?” ‘Coal. “Then, Mr. Tyne Coal for the Havana, just heave to whilst I send away a boat to look at you. I fancy you will be the steam- boat I’m sent to find and fetch back.” The decks of the uncomfortable war- ship had hummed with men; a pair of boat davits had swung outboard, and the boat had been armed and manned with naval noise and quickness. But just then a bil- low of the fog had driven down upon them, blanket like in its thickness, which closed all human vision beyond the range of a dozen yards, and Capt. Kettle jumped like @ terrier on his opportunity. He sent his steamer hard astern, with a slightly ported helm, and whilst the torpedo catcher’s boat was searching for him toward the French shore, and sending vain hails into.(the white banks of the mist, he was eiroling slowly and silently round toward’ thé: Bng- lish coast. + So long as the mist held the Sultan of Borneo was as hard to find as a needle in @ cargo of hay; did the air clear for so much as a single instant she would be no- ticed and stand self-confessed by her at- tempt to escape, and as a result the sus- pense was vivid enough to make Carnforth feel physical nausea. He had not reckoned on this complication. He was quite prepar- ed to risk capture in Cuban waters, where kim, broke’ the jaw of one With a camp stool, and so maltreated the others with the same weapon thet they were glad enough to run away even with the exasperating knowledge that they left their taskmaster undamaged behind them. So although this al-nation crew of the Sultan of Borneo dreaded the Spaniards much, they feared Capt. Kettle far more. and by the time the steamer closed up with the Island of Cuba they had concluded to folicw out their skip- per’s orders, as being the least of the two evils which lay before them. Carnforth’s way of looking at the matter was peculiar. He had all a hearty man’s appetite for adventure, and all a prosper- ous man’s distaste for being wrecked. He had taken a strong persoral liking for the truculent little skipper, and, other things being equal, would have cheerfully helped him, but on the other hand, he couid not avoid seeing that St was to his own inter- ests that the crew should get their way and keep the steamer out of dangerous waters. And so when finally he decided to stand by non-interferent, he prided himself a good deal on his forbearance, and said so to Kettle in as many words. That worthy mariner quite agreed with him. “It’s the very best thing you could do, sir,” he an- swered. “It would have annoyed me ter- ribly to have had to sheot you out of the glamor of distance and the dazzle of helping insurrectionists would cast a glow of romance over whatever occurred. But to be caught in the English channel as a vulgar smuggler for the sake of commer- cial profit, and to be hauled back for hard labor in an English jail, was a different matter. He was a member of parliament, and he understood these details in all their niceties. But Capt. Kettle took the situation differ- ently. The sight of the torpedo-catcher stiffened all the doubt and limpness out of his composition; his eye brightened and his lips grew stiff; the scheming to escape acted on him like a tonic; and when an hour later the Sultan of Borneo was steam- ing merrily down channel at top speed (through the same impenetrable fog) the little skipper whistled dance music on the upper bridge, and caught the notion for a most pleasing sonnet. That evening the crew came aft in a state of wild mutiny, and Kettle attended to their needs with gusto. He prefaced his remarks by a slight ex- hibition of marksmanship. He cut away the vane, which showed dimly on the fore- topmast truck,with a single bullet, and then after dexterously reloading his revolver, lounged over the white rail of the upper bridge with the weapon in his hands. He told the malcontents he was glad of the opportunity to give them his views on matters generally. He informed them gen- jally that for their personal wishes he cared not one decimal of a jot. He stated plainly that he had got them on board, and intended by their help to carry out his owner's instructions, whether they hated them or not. And finally he gave them his candid assurance that if any cur among them presumed to disobey the least of his orders he would shoot that man neatly through the head, without further pre- amble. : This elegant harangue did not go home to all hands at once, because being a Brit- ish ship, the Sultan of Borneo’s crew nat- urally spoke in five different languages, and few of them had even a working knowledge of English. But the look of Kettle’s savage little face as he talked, and the red torpedo beard, which wagged beneath it, conveyed to them the tone of his speech, and for the time they did not require a more accurate translation. They had come off big with the intention of forcing him (if necessary with violence) to run the steamer there and then into an English port; they went forward again like @ pack of sheep, merely because one man had let them hear the virulence of his bark and had shown them with what accuracy he could bite if necessary. ‘And that's the beauty of a mongrel crew,” said Kettle complacently. “If they'd been English, I'd have had to shoot at least two of the beasts to keep my end up like that.” “You're a marvel,” Carnforth admitted. “I'm a bit of a speaker myself, but I never heard a man with a gift of tongue like you have got.” “I'm poisonous when I spread myself,” said Kettle. “I wish I was clear of you,” said Carn- ferth, with an awkward laugh. “Whatever Possessed me to leave the yacht and come on this cruise I can’t think. “Some people never do krow when they’re well off,” said Kettle. “Well, sir, you're in for it now, and you may see things which will be of service to you afterward. You ought to make your mark in parliament if you do get back from this trip. You'll have something to talk about that men will lke to listen to, instead of merely chatter- ing wind, which is what most of them are put to, eo far as I can see from the papers. And now, sir, here’s the steward come to tell us tea’s ready. You go below and tuck in. I'll take mine on the bridge here. It ven’t do for me to turn my back yet awhile, or else those beasts forrard will Jump on us from behind and murder the whole lot whilst we aren’t looking.” The voyage from that time onward was for Capt. Kettle a period of constant watch: fulness. It would not be true to say that he never took off his clothes or never slept; He then maltreated them with the leg of a camp stool.” but whether he was in pajamas in the chart house, or whether he was sitting on an upturned ginger beer case under the shelter of one of the upper bridge canvas dodgers, with his tired eyes shut and the red, peaked beard upon his chest, it was always the same; he was always ready in- stantly to spring upon the alert. One dark night an iron belaying pin flew out of the blackness of the fcrecastle and whizzed within an tnch of his sleeping head, but he reused so quickly that he was able to shoot the thrower through the shoulder before he could dive back again through the fore- castle door. And another time when a pow- dering gale had kept him on the bridge for forty-elght consecutive hours, and a depu- tation of the deck hands raided him in the chart house on the su: ition that exhaus- tion would have him out in a dead sleep, he woke before their fingers touched weight to it. mischief's way, because you've been kind enough to say you like my. poetry, and he- cause I've come to see, sir, you’re a gentle- man.” we They came to this arrangement on the morning of the day:they opened out the secluded bay in the southern Cuban shore, where the contraband: of ;war was to be run. Kettle calculajed his whereabouts with niceness, and, after the midday ob- servation, lay the stenmer sto for a couple of hours and himself supervised his en- gineers, whilst they gave @ good overhaul to the machinery. Then he gave her steam again and made his landfal four hours af- ter the sunset. s They saw the coast first as a black line running across the dim gray of the night. It rose as they neared it; and showed a crest fringed with trees and’a foot steeped in white mist, from out of which came the faint bellow of surf. Captain Kettle, after a@ cast or two, picked up his marks and steamed in confidently, with his sidelights dowsed and three red lanterns in a trian- gle at his foremast head. He was feeling pleasantly surprised with the easiness of it all. But when the steamer had got well into the bight of the bay, and all the glasses on the bridge were peering at the shore in search of answering lights, a blaze of radi- ance suddenly fiickered on to her from astern, and was as suddenly eclipsed, leav- ing them for a moment blinded by its daz- zle. It was a long truncheon of light which spouted from a glowing center away be- tween the heads of the bay, and they watched it sweep away from them over the surface of the water, and then sweep back again, Finally, after a HMttle more dalli- ance, it settled on the steamer, and lit her and the ring of water on which she swam like a chip in a lantern picture. Carnforth swore aloud, and Captain Ket- tle lit a fresh ctgar. Those of the mongrel crew who were on deck went below to pack their bags. “Well, sir,” said Kettle, cheerful ‘here we are. That’s a Spanish gunboat, with searchlight, all complete.” He screwed up his eyes and gazed astern meditatively— “She's got the heels on us, too, by about five knots, I should say. Just look at the flames coming out of her funnels. Aren't they just giving her ginger down in the stoke hold. Shooting will begin directly, and the other blackguards ashore have ap- parently forgotten all about us. There isn’t chine gun on his ship to sweep the British steamer’s bridge. But the space cf time was too sraall. The gunboat could not turn with enough quickness; 2n so short a no- tice the engines could not get her into her stride again; and the shooting, though well- intentioned and prodigious in quantity, was pcor in atm. The bullets whisped through the air, and pelted on the plating like a hailstorm, and one of them flicked out the brains of the Danish quartermaster on the bridge; but Kettle took the wheel from his hands, and a moment later the Sultan of Berneo’s stem crashed into the gunhoat’s unprotected side just abaft the sponson of her starboard quarter gun.” The steamers thrilled like kicked biscuit bexes, and a noise wert up into the hot night sky as of 10,000 »oilermakers all heading up a rivet at once. On both ships the propellers stopped, as if by instinct, and then, in answer to the telegraph, the grimy collier backed astern. But the war steamer did not move. ready got a heavy list toward her wounded side, and every second the list was increas- ing as the water poured in through the shattered plates. Her crew were buzzing with disorder. It was evident that the ves- sel had but a short time longer to swim, and their lives were sweet to them. They had no thought of vengeance. Their wea- pens lay deserted on the sloping deck. The grimy crews from the stokeholds pour- ed up from below, and one and all they clustered about the boats, with frenzied a light anywhere.” “What are you going to do?” asked Carn- forth. “Follow out Mr. Gedge’s instructions, sir, and put this cargo on the beach. Whether the old Sultan goes there, too, remains to be seen.” “That gunboat will cut you off in a quar- ter of an hour if you keep on this course.” “With that extra five knots she can do as she likes with us, so I shan’t shift my helm. It would only look suspicious.” “Good Lord!” said Carnforth, “as if our being here at all isn’t suspicion itself.” But Kettle did not answer. He had, to use his own expression, “got his wits work- ing under forced draft,” and he could not afford time for idle speculation and chat- ter. It was the want of the answering signal ashore ‘that upset him. Had that showed against the biack background of hilis he would have known what to do. Meanwhile the Spanish warship was clos- ing up with him hand over fist, and a de- cision was necessary. Anyway the choice was a poof one. If he surrendered, he would be searched, and with that damning cargo of rifles and machine guns and am- munition urder his ‘hatches, {t was not at all improbable that, his captors might string him up out of hand. They would have right on their side for doing so. The insurrectionists were not ‘recognized bel- ligerents;” he would Btand'as a filibuster confessed, and as such would be due to suffer under that rough and ready martial law which cannot spate time to feed and jail prisoners. On the other hand, if he refused to heave to, ;the result would be equally simple; the warship would sink him with her guns inside a dozén minutes, and reckless daredevil though he might be, Ket- tle knew quite well there was no chance of avoiding this. With another crew he might have been tempted to lay his old steamer alongside the other and try to carry her by boarding and sheer hand-to-hand fight- ing; but excepting for;those on watch in the stockhold, his present set of men were all below packing their belongings into portable shape, and he knew. quite well that nothing would pléase them better than to see him discomfited. ‘Carnforth was neutral; he had only hts two mates and the engineer officers to depend upon in all the available world; and he recdgnized between deep drafts of his cigar that he was in a very tight place. Still the dark shore ahead remained un- beaconed and the Spaniard was racing up astern, lit for battle, ‘with her crew at quarters and the guns run out and loaded. She leaped nearer by fathoma to the sec- ond, till Kettle could tear the panting of her engines as she chased him down. His teeth chewed on the cigar butt and dark rings grew under his eyes. He could have raged aloud at his impotence. he wer steamer ranged up alongside, slowed to some sixty.revolutions so as to keep her place, and an officer on the top cf her chart house hailed in Spanish: “Gunboat ahoy.” Kettle bawled back, “You. mvst speak English or I can’t be civil to you." “What ship is that?” “Sultan .>f Borneo, Kettle, master. of Shields.” “Where for?’ “The Havana.” Promptly the query. came back, ‘Then what are you doirg in here?” . Carnforth whispered a suggestion. “Fresh water run out; condensed water given all hands dysentery, butyl here to fill up tanks.” “I thank you, ‘sir,” said Kettle in the same undertone. “I’m no hand at lying myself, or I might have thought of that before.” And he.shouted an-excuse across to the spokesman on the chart house roof. To his surprise they seemed to give There was a short consulta- tion and the steamers slipped along over the smooth black waters of the bay on parallel courses, “Have you got dysentery bad aboard?” came the 1 ext question. z Once more Carnforth prompted, and Ket- tle repeated his words: “Look at my decks,” said he. “All my crew are below. I've hardly a man to stand by me.” There was more consultation among the gunboat’s officers, and then came the fatal inquiry, “What's your cargo, captain?” “Oh, coals,” said Kettle, resignedly. “What, you're bringing Tyne coal to the Havana?" “Just coals,” said Capt. Kettle, with a bitter laugh. The tone of the Spaniard changed. “Heave to at once,” he ordered, “whilst I serd a boat to search you. Refuse, and I'll bicw you out of water On the Sultan of Rorneo’s upper bridge Carnforth swore. ‘Eh-ho, skipper,” he said, “the game’s up, and there’s no way out of it. You won't be a fool, will you, and sacrifice the ship and the whole lot of us? Come, I say, man, ring off your en- gines, cr that fellow will shoot, and we shall all be murdered uselessly. I tell you the game's up.” “By James,” said Kettle, “is it? Look there,” and he pointed with outstretched arm to the hills on the sore ahead. “Three fires!” he cried. "Two above one in a tri- angle, burning like Elswick furnaces amongst the trees. They're ready for us over yonder, Mr. Carnforth, and that’s their welcome. Do you think I'm going to let my cargo be stopped after getting it thus far?” He turned to the Danish quar- termaster, at the wheel, with his savage face close to the than's ear. “Starboard,” he ga{d; “hard over, you bung-eyed Dutch ‘Starboard, as far as she'll go.” t = = The wheel engines clattered briskly in the house underneath, an@ the-Sultan of Bor- Out neo’s head swung off qui to port. For eight moconas ihe ones pens — gunbeat: Bee what appen! and that clght Ce fatal to the: When the insnifalions catharhe Bubbled in noisy orders; he-starl ed. his own helm, he rang “full speed alread’t-to own en- ‘gines, and he ordered-every rifle and ma haste to see them floating in the water. There was no more to be feared at their hands for the present. Carnforth clapped Kettle on the shoulder in involuntary admiration. “By God!” he cried, “‘what a daring little scoundrel you are. Look here. I'm on your side now, if j can be of any help. Can you give me a ob?” “I'm afraid, sir,” said Capt. Kettle, “that the old Sultan's work is about done. She's settling down by the head already. Didn't you see those rats of men seuttling up from forrard directly after we'd ram- med the Don? I guess that was a bit of surprise packet for them, anyway. They thought they'd get down there to be clear of the shooting, and they found themselves in the most ticklish part of the ship. “There's humor in the situation,” said Carnforth. “But the case will keep. For the present, it strikes me that this old steamboat is swamping fast.” ugBhe 1s: doing that,” Kettle admitted. ‘She'll have a lot of Plates started for- rard,.I guess. But I think she’s come out Me it. very creditably, sir. I didn’t spare er, and she’s not exactly built for a ram.” “I suppose it’s a case of putting her on the beach?” “There's nothing else for it,” with a sigh. “I should like to have carried those blasted coals into the Havana if it could have been done, just to show people ours was a bona fide contract, as Mr. Gedge said, in spite of its fishy look. But, this old steamboat’s done her whack, and that’s the square truth. It will take her all she can manage to reach shore with dry docks. Look, she’s in now nearly to her forecastle head. Lucky the shore’s not steep to here, or else—” From beneath there came a bump and a rattle, and the steamer for a moment halted in her progress, and a white-crested wave surged past her rusty flanks. Then she lifted again and swooped further in, with the propeller still squattering astern. and then once more she thundered down said Kettle, again into the sand, and so, lifting and striking, made her way in ‘through the surf. Gradually her stern was forced round, and she was beaten up the beach broadside on, with the green and white water at times making a clean breach over her. She was past all control. More than one of the hands was swept from her decks and reached the shore by swimming. But as the ebb made, the hungry seas left her stranded dry under the morning's light, and a crowd of insurrectionists waded out and climbed on board by ropes which were thrown to them. They were men of every tint, from the gray black of the pure negro to the sallow, lemon tint of the pure-blooded Spaniard. They were streaked with wounds, thin as skeletons, and clad more with nakedness than rags, and so woifish did they look that even’ Kettle, callous little ruftian though he was, half regretted bringing arms for such a crew to wreak vengeance on their neighbors. But they gave him small time for senti- ment of this brand. They clustered round him with leaping hands, till the morning sea fowl fled affrighted from the beach. El Senor Capitan Inglese was the savior of Cuba, and let every one remember it; alone, with his unarmed vessel, he had sunk a warship of their hated enemies, and they prayed him in their florid compliment to stay on the island and rule over them as king. But the little sailor “What's this?” he said be your blooming king? “El rey,” they shouted; “El rey de los Cubanos.” “By James,” said Kettle, “I'll do it. I was never asked to be a king before, and the chance may never come again. Be- sides, I'm out of a berth just now. and England will be too hot to hold me yet awhile. Yes, I'll stay and boss you, and if you can act half as ugly as you’ look, we'll give the dons a lively time. Only re- member, there's no tomfoolery about me. If I'm king of this show, I'm going to carry a full king’s ticket, and if there's any man tries to meddle without being in- vited, that man will go to his own funeral before he can think twice. And now, we'll just begin business at once. Off with those took them Iiterally. “You want me to hatches and break out that cargo. I've Loe at some pains to run these guns out ere, so be careful in carrying them up the beach, Jump lively, now, you black-faced scum.” Carnforth listened with staring eyes. What sort of broil was this truculent little scamp going to mix in next? He knew enough of Spanish character to under- stand clearly that the offer of the crown was merely an empty civility; he under- stood enough of Kettle to be sure that he had not taken it as such, and would assert his rights to the bitter end. And when he thought of what that end must inevitably be, he sighed over Owen Kettle’s fate. But the person he was chiefly sorry for just then was Martin Carnforth, M. P. He remembered with clearness that a few hours before he had offered Kettle per- sonal service, and he saw no practical means of avoiding the pledge. Poor man, he'd a lot to go through before he got back to London town. (The End.) ——__ A Paying Partnership. From the New York Weekly. Struggling Playright (gloomily)—“There is no chance for talent in these days, no chance at all.” Stranger—“That’s because you don’t know how to use your talents. Go into partner- ship with me, and we'll both make for- tunes.” All you need to do is to write a ten- act play. I'll get it produced at the Fash- iomTheater’ at_ my own expense and we'll divide the profits.” ‘Are you’ the manager of the Fashion Theater?” I run the saloon next door.” ——————--_____ Drove 700 Turkeys Ten Miles. From the York, Pa., Times, A drove of seven hundred turkeys arrived at Hanover yesterday from East Berlin, ten miles distant, for dressing. The fowls were no more trouble than a flock of sheep, except when some became stampeded, in which case they all fly after their leader. The drovers are provided with long poles, to which long pieces of cloth are attached. His Desire. From Puck. Old Flint (savagely)—So you want to be- ceme my son-in-law, young man?” I merely Her machinery was broken down. She had al- “Pure and Sure.” Ceveland ING POowDER. powder. No alum, no adulteration, Cevelands BAKING PowDER. 37 years on the market. A favorite wherever introduced. leveland: A pure cream of tartar BAKIN THE CANDID CRITIC. A Little Tale With a Moral. | From Black and White. “You are all dear, good creatures, the whole five of you,” said the sultan. “No- | body that I ever heard of is more blessed | in his domestic affairs. You tolerate my little whims and fancies. What is still | more to your credit, you never quarrel | among yourselves. In fact, there never was a happier harem. I’m a lucky cock, and yet——” Here he sighed, and his hens clucked inquiringly. “Let us know the cause of your trouble, my love,” said the big black lady. She was his last wife, and possessed exceptional | power over him, but always exercised it | with tact. | “Well, I am, if anything, too happy. My | life is monotonous—even demoralizing. | Too much admiration must be a dangerous | thing to one of my sanguine temperament. | You spoil me; you do not tell me my faults.” “You have none,” said the Cochin China. She was the oldest of his wives, and made up in craft what she lacked in charm. “No,” he answered, “I am mortal. I make mistakes and err, like other people. “It is your extreme modesty which leads } you to imagine so,” answered the Cochin China. “I know your sex. You are one in ten thousand.” The others agreed with her, and said she had done no more than state facts. Still the sultan felt unsettled. He may be de- scribed briefly as an exceptional bird. He had good qualities, and he knew it; but he lacked Honest criticism. This is a’sort of commodity which cocks and hens and many others are always clamoring for till they get it. Then the criticised has a new grievance and the critic a new enemy. The sultan's difficulty was presently solved in a highly pleasant manner, and he received a Christmas present in the shape of a new wife. She came in a hamper, and the harem, forgetting the season of the year, the claims of hospitality and the common politeness due to a fellow hen who had traveled far and was cold and Weary, abstained from all show of cor- diality on the occasion of her arrival. Pos- sessing, as it seemed, nor style, nor intellect, nor any fascination of manner, the new wife's prospects appeared slightly dismal. She kept her nerve, however, helped her- self demurely to a drink of water, took a Uttle Indian corn and brushed herself up generally before the sultan came round the corner. Needless to say, his natural gal- lantry by no means forsook him. He ex- tended the claw of friendship; he welcomed his new wife with sultanic dignity. The new wife showed proper gratitude for a reception beyond her merits. She listened to the sultan, and, in an unlucky moment for her, aczeded to his first request. It was that she should never hesitate to candidly criticise him. “Impartial testimony to character is so refreshing and so rare,” said the sultan. “I will always tell you if I think you are wrong,” declared the new wife, doubtless somewhat above herself at the warmth of her reception. Henceforth the farm yard beheld the re- markable spectacle of a cock criticised by his wife. She held the critical faculty ab- normally developed, and appetite grew by what it fed on. At first he liked it—at least he said so. He bowed to her better judgment. He said ‘You are right!” “Happily observed!” “Justly noted!” And so forth. He even modified his method of life in certain small particulars out of re- «ard for her. Conscious of her power, and wholly un- used to exercise it until now, the new wife began to tread on dangerous ground. Crit- icism became a habit. It developed into mere nagging. It often does. The sultan felt that his new wife was getting on his nerves. He passed through a variety of novel, not wholly pleasing experiences; the five turned from him with cold glances and indifference..They told him rather offen- sively to keep to his dear, candid friend and comforter, and let them go on their simple, uncritical way. The sultan stified the volcano of indignation which had now been bubbling in his heart for the space of three weeks, and merely said with simu- lated indifference that no wise cock ever yet objecfed to disinterested and honest criticism. But the student of gallinaceous nature will perceive that a condition of affairs so exasperating could by no means continue. There came, in fact, a day when the sul- tan was provoked into retort, and the eyes of the unhappy new wife were opened to her error. The sultan said a thing or two which he would have been the first to re- gret in a cooler moment, and when the new wife reterted with an obvious but bitter repartee he pecked her head and lost his temper and threw over his better nature, and gave himself willingly into the hand of the evil one. So the new wife died, and the five waked her handsomely, and the farmer thought that It was his dog that had slain her, being ignorant of the circumstances. As for the sultan, he was down in the beak about it, and said hard things against himself for some days, and seemed off his food. But the five got around him, and everybody knows what a tactful hen can do if she only gives her mind to it. Of course, he believed it all; and he was prob- ably right to do so, for praise is like a tonic to some simple natures, whereas the aoe merely crushes life and hope out of them. Here is a nine-months-old Sandow. He is Henry Edward William Ward, the child of Mr. and Mrs. H. D. Ward of Lewiston, Meine. At an early age this miniature giant began to show signs of remarkable strength for an infant. When three months old his weight was twenty pounds and his parents commenced to notice his unusual development. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Ward are of large proportions, and the rapid way in which their young son took on fiesh surprised them. Mr. Ward, who was something of an ath- lete in his younger days, thought he saw the foundation for a remarkably strong man in his son, and when he was about three months old adopted a gentle system of exercise, through which he put young Henry every day. He also put his little son on a diet that was muscle producing, and in a few weeks was delighted to notice a great improvement. Then some light dumbbells were secured for the boy, and under the careful tuition of his father he soon manipulated them surprisingly well. Young Henry's weight was so great for a youth of his age that | holding in j Want to be too hard on the boy. satin the bells about a month and I saw the ef- fect was good, I was willing to experiment a little, and 1 gave him some tests to show his strength. “When he was five months old I put a bandage around him and hed him sus- pended over a fifteen-pound dumbbell. He grasped it and lifted it clear of the floor, so nearly a minute. This tesi never tired him in the least. He now, at nine months of age, lifts a twenty-five- pound dumbbell, and keeps it in the air a minute, and would do so longer, but I don’t I don't mean to brag about my gon, but I belleve he is the coming strong man without any | doubt.” “When he was three months old,” says Mrs. Ward, who attends to his dieting, “I commenced to feed him on graham crack ers soaked in milk. This not only put on fiesh rapidly, but also built up his bones and muscles. I am now giving him solid focds of different kinds, and he wants to eat most of the time. ‘Sometimes I have to take him away from the table for fear he will eat too much, and then he is sure to ery Mr. Ward is fitting up a model miniature gymnasium for his boy, anc he is putting in all sorts of appliances <o the muscles of the young wondgr boy himself is not surprised at anything, and takes his training as a matter of course. He is learning to talk rapidly, and is as bright as a new dollar. Every muscle in the little fellow’s body stands out promi- nently, and his flesh is as hard and firm as a professional boxer's. His bi developed in an astonishing mani feel like iron. —— se Holland Still Grow! From the Literary Digest. Holland has determined upon a giganth.- ergineering feat—the reclaiming of 787 square miles of land now lying under the Zuyder Zee. Eight hundred years ago all of Holland contained but 600 square miles of land, or less than one-third of the area of the state of Delaware. Gradually, by means of great dikes, land has been re- claimed until the present area is nearly 13,000 square miles. This is more than twenty times the original area. The new werk involves the construction of 2 dam twenty-seven miles in length. The line will run from a point near Helder, which is north of Amsterdam, to the Island of Wieringen. Then from the east end of the island, which is ten miles long, connecting ata point just south of Workum. The dike will measure thirty-five feet at the base, tapering to eight feet at the top. The first task is the driving of two rows of piles on either side of the proposed dike, forming a passage fifty feet wide. Against these there will be packed bags of sand un- til two parallel embankments are raised above the sea level. The water will then be pumped out of this area and a dry canal formed from shore to shore. Here on the bed of the sea the dike will be built of solid masonry. Behind the wall will be a bank of earth, bound with willow twigs in a series of vasket work. For the drainage of this great basin colossal windmills are to be constructed 200 fect in beight, with arms seventy-five feet long. These will raise the water into the network of canals which will cover the reclaimed area. Nor is this the end of the task. The bottom of the sea is sand of little fertility. Top soil and fertilizers will be brought from every Dutch colony, and in two or three gener: tions the depression will be brought to the level of the canals. Where once the sea flowed unrestricted there will be green gar- dens and farms, dotted with cottages and towns, and canals covered with heavily. laden barges. Holland will have spent $50,000,000 in completing this enterprise, but she will have added $60,000,000 to her national wealth, and will have demonstrated afresh the moral greatness of a people who, in the face of such tremendous natural disad- vantages, have the patience to compel earth to yield her treasures. +o% Not Legal Tendei From the Detroit Free Press. “What's the matter, chum’ asked the college student of his roommate, who was making the air a dark blue. “Matter? I wrote the governor to send me some money for text books, and here he’s sent me the books. I can never pay my bills at this rate.” sos No Greenhorn, From Judge. Boat Official—“To put out that electria light turn it off same as you would gas.” Pat—“Av coorse! Oi’m no granehorng but yez may lave me a few matches in case Oi warts t loight it agin.” A million of suffering women cry with uplifted hands for some relief from the pains and tortures of diseases peculiar to their sex. A million more suffer in silence rather than subject themselves to the ab- horrent and humiliating examinations and local treatment so uniformly insisted upon oe cidest thought of all is that all this agony of body and mind is absolutely “Female weakness” car, be go BN , speedily, —without exposure, with slight ¥. a it leaving your own home. Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Pres ri will cure any disorder or disease of the s dis- tinctly fethimine. No matter how hopeless thi ik your case—no matter how many Eoctore owe told you that were in- curable—no matter what you have done or left undone, the ‘Favorite Prescription” ness ywomen ordeal Tt RESTes y,