The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 29, 1903, Page 1

HIS is the third installmen of “The Master of Appleby,” the Colonial love tele with the mystic ending. The author is & perfect literary wizard in the thrill- ing manner he piles exciting episode upon heart beating situations, and forever keeps you in anxious doubt a8 to who finally wins beautiful Madge Stair—Sir Francis Falconnet, Richard Jennifer or “The Master of Appleby.” Can you the love riddle before the last have been & it gave of w! swear that had the word n I gave } Jead to chaw o T esid 1 had come as time or two before, thou fair fight; and thereu svaianche of questions su hearted folk know h en 1 hed sufficie count- ed for nmyself, « Forney— he was the limber backed young tellow I ridden beh gripped my hand znd gave me 2 hea welcome and congr - chance r that to we ich > calis missing man —this to was methodical- E in the r you mind up whell ne, T looked 1 answers; in explications I'ncanoola, the Catawba,” he 2 ne of the friendlies. He was out night and came in an reak with the news that Colonel Tarleton was set upon hanging a e f ours. From that to © little am- wanting space to turn s. “This Catawba; Is ¢t my age?’ Captain For- God he only knows an But Uncanoola has been an grown these fifteen years or more. can recall his coming to my father's ouse when I was but a little cadger.” At that, I remembered, too; remem- bered & tall, straight young savage, as handsome as a figure dope In Dbronze, who used sometimes to meet me in the nelier forest wilds when I was out a- bunting; remembered how at first I was afratd of him: how once I would have hot him in & fit of boyish race antipathy 4 sudden fright had he not flung away bis firelock and stood before me defense- l': =0, 1 recalled a little incident of the terrible scourge in '6), when the black pox bade fair to blot out this tribe of the Catawbas: how when my father had found this young savage lying in the for- . deserted by ull ved his life and lague-stricken and esme arned an Ind “I know th befri never sorry for it, as I be- Then I would ask if these Ca- >mselves on the pa- which led the young militia captaln to give me the news at large, while his borderers were breaking camp and making their hasty prepara- ms for the day’s march Tis liberty or death with us now; we've burnt our br.uges behind us,” he said en he had confirmed the tidings I had had the day before from Father Matthieu. “And since here in Carolina we have to fight each man against his neighbor, ‘tis ltke to’ go hard with us, lacking help frem the North.” Y out to dodg b Captain Forney, ng the venture by telling hi t Tarleton's d ¢ the Indlan-arming plot leve tawbas had ranged t triot side, & questio also erheard 1 dodge the redcoats, never you we're at our best in that,” he re- oined, carelessly. “And as to the Chero- e fear; z with us, if y I can promise yc t would never come and making had never before w ch a du s no 10o; P ns wer® brass, with 2 wed to a bounding every de There all this wall save o h had promised to open The promis had been e, death had thrust the key lock, and I had heard th e bolts; and yet the key had wn and I was left a prisoner n st There w: rizons narro gra been with was s yolish I thought e would nev in, save at a d freedom back a hands was It of the pri; dungeon of dishonor fetched me once and th at each fresh scanning that shut me in this age n to this one sally-port of death. And when it came to this, that I had searched in vain for other outlet, you will not nik it strange that I sat down in spirit at this postern to see if I might open it with my own hands. It was not love of life that made me hesitate. At two-score years he who has lived at all has lived his best: and it he live beyond the turning point of youth- ful ardor he must beg the grace of younger men to linger yet a little longer on the stage which once was his and now is theirs. No, it was not any love of life for life's own sake that held me back. 'Twa$ rather that the Ireton blood is linked up with that thing we cail conscience, a heritage from those simple-hearted an- re ces to whom. the suicide was a soul accurst—a soul impenitent, whose very outer husk of flesh and bones they used to bury at the crossing of the ways, with a sharpened stake to pinfon it. ‘Twas this ancestral conscience made me cowardly and when the sight of my father's sword—Darius had rescued and restored it to its place upon the chimrey- breast—wnuld set me thinking of the Israelitish King, and how, when all was lost, he fell upon his-blade and died, this horror of the suicide came to give me pause. Besides, that way to right the double wrong was not so clear as it might seem. As matters stood, my living for the pres- ent was Margery's best safeguard. Till the became my widow and my heir-at- law, the mercenary Baronet would play his cards to win her honorably. I doubt- ed not he'd make hot love to her,” but while she stayed a wife and was not yet a widow, he'd keep his passion decently in bounds, if only for the better compass- ing of his end. But from this horn of the dllemma I slipped to fall upon the other. If my living on as Margery’'s: husband was her safety for the time, it was an offering of of would i » about to m 1 him. for his it“was not I but up mmmets w t point I could turn * darkness hope t! 1 blot r ady, t had set me thought 1 sw of the heirloom and the other bla to keep an rd waking through he night A forth upon my er- rand to the dear lad, plunging directly to the virgin forest, the better to avoid encounter with scouting parties of Sir ho I made no doubt would unturned te run me again Falconnet ve no sto earth. But sc: rd 1 traversed a mile into the gathering darkness than rt-rending cries of anguish coming faintly from the direction of the lodge that I left held me affrighted in my tracks and a flaring glare of fire, that mounted higher and ever higher toward the heavens e'en while I stood and lis- tened, sent me bounding and.stumbling back over the rough trail, the while my soul was filled with I )W not what misgivings only to come at last upon a scene in the little clearing that was one to brand itself in lasting shapes upon my memory. A brush heap newly kindled gave out a ky glow flaring in es of smoky red the overarching foliage. The around the cabin was alive ages running to and s horseman backed by oth- till more phantom like. here was no mystery about it. My enemy had come with sleuth hound In- dians at kis back to run me down. The rages were no doubt that band of over tain Cherokees pledged by their chief to dilot the powder convoy, and by their help the Baronet had tracked me. That was the first thought caught at in passing, but when I came to look- again I saw what had been done. Sprawled on the ground before the-burning brush pile, his wrinklc3 face a hideous mask of suf- fering, with eyeballs starting from their sockets in the death-wrench, lay my faithful Darius. s By what inhuman tortures they, had made him point- the way, or how or .why they had slain him at the last, I Know not, but I made sure it was his death scream that had halted me and set the stillness of the forest alive with ghastly echoes. At sight of the stiffening body of my faithful slave you may suppose my blood ran cold and hot by turns -and that his blood cried out for vengeance from the sod that soaked it up. In such flaming rage as this I threw caution to the winds and dashed out straight across the clear- ing, bent on settling forever with the man, who by all the laws of God had earned his death, but in the twinkling of an eye I was surrounded and whizzing hatchets and rifle bullets whining sibilant were but an earnest of the fate T had in- vited. in me 1} but to draw dier should, so I i -h @ coll as this I'd loaped ng for it as | cl and die with a yell icked a tree d ran for it In mid career he: , two men—a white man and an In- n—ran in ahead,/as I supposed to cut me off. Just then' the dry roof of the hunting lodge roared aflame i the forest near and at my back and on the s of the two who ran to meet me. A t s0b Iled ir v th t and choked me, but I ran dear rging g the faster. these were my d the friendly Catawba, ch lantly to cover 1gy 5 It was a r They ran in twirling hjs helr brdvely. of mnecd. the ckief ahead tofmahawk for the thre with Dick anace to right and rear, his two great nistols brandished and the grandsire of all the broadswords dangling by a thong at his wrist. in time ow the chief,” t the w nt his I outed in pass- ing. and ped short, the nping to run aside to point the snatching my sword from my hand to give me no choice but to foliow And on the instant Dick’s pistols be to belch forth death, before he too, turr and sped affer us. The Cherokees, checked but for ‘a mo- ment, stormed hotly at our heels. And as we ran I heard the shouted command of: Frlconnet to his mounted men: “A res- cue. Right obligue and head them in the road. Gallop, you devils “Thank God, rd’ as we cleared the road w fraction of a minute to spare. “I was afraid that even the chief might miss the in the dark. Down the bank to the river—quick, man, and cautious. If they ‘smeil us out now. we are no better than buzzards' meat.”’ And when we reached -the water's edge: “You taught me how to paddle a pirogue, Jack, I hope you haven't lost the knack of it vourself.” “No,” said I, and the three of us slid the hollowed log into the stream. We were afloat In shortest order, but I being as ‘yet but little better than hal? a man in breath and muscle, e'en as [ bent to strike my paddle deep to balance Jennifer's stroke” felt-a flying missile catech me fairly behind the ear, ahd on the instant, the' rhythmic dip and drip of Jennifer's dle faded on the senss of hearing, till-as it would seem, this gentle monody 'became a crooning lullaby to blot out all the years that lay between, and make. me once™again a little chil. sinking to sleép in my young mother's arms. 1 HOW JENNIFER THREW A MAIN WITH DEATH. ; 'Tis a sure mark of healthful sleep that it never makes account of time. No odds how long the night, 'tis but a moment from the lapse of consciousness to its re- covery in the morning. But this deep sleep that crept upon me as I lay in the plrogue, listening to the tinkling drip from Jennifer's paddle, was not of health- ful weariness, and when I came awake “from- it ‘there was a dim and troubled vista of vague and broken dreams to measure off the longest night I could ever remember. The piace of this aw burrow in the carth. My bed of bearskins over fragrant pinetufts was spread upon the ground, 4nd by the fiickering light of andful of fire I could the earth wails of the burrow, which were worn smooth as if the place had been the well- used den of some wild creature. But overhead there was the % of human ney. since the _earth-arch was and blackened with the reek of ny fires. When [ stirred there was another stir beyond” the handfui of fire, and Jennifer came to kneel beside me, taking my hand and chafirg it as a tender-hearted woman mizght, anl asking if I knew him. should I not?” I vondering why the words took so breaths between. all I had in answer: but had found a tongue to babble 1 learned the why and where- Once more grim death had reached me, lying await in the twirled toma- set me dreaming of my moth- nd lullaby. For a week I had lain herc upon the bed of pinetufts, poised upon the brink of the death pit with only my dear lad to hold and draw me back. ' “A week?” T querled, when he had named the interval. “‘And you have been here all the tim % “I've never left you, save to forage for the pot,”’-he admitted. *I dared not leave you, Jack."” “Put_where are we?” I would ask. “In a den on the river's edge, a mile or more above your, sacked cabin. ’'Tis some dodge-hole hollowed out by the Catawbas long ago and shared since by nd the bears, judging - from the ng reek of it. Uncanbola steered me hither the night of the rald.” “Then the chief came off safely?” I faid, falling into a dumb and impotent rage that the saying of two words should scant me so of strength to say a third. “Right a trivet—scalps and all” laughed Jennifer. ‘“He'll be the envy of every warrior in the tribe . when he vaunts himself at Catawaba council fire.” L let it rest a while at that. cac‘ing 2hout for words to shape a hungrier =3 tion. “Have you no mnews?’ I length. “Little or none,” he answered shortly. “But_you have had some word—some news—from Appleby Hundred?” I stam- mered feebly. “Nothing you'd care to hear,” he re- joined, . evasively, I thought. 'Tis as you left it, save that Tarleton whipped away to the south again as suddenly as he came, and our cursing Baronet has made the manor house his headquarters in fact, lodging himself and all his troop on Mr. Stair. From his lying quiet and keeping the Cherokees in tow, there will be some deviltry afoot, I'll warrant.” I knew that Falconnet was waiting for the powder cargo, but another matter crowded this aside. “But—but Margery?’ T queried, on sharpest tenter-hooks to know how much or little he had heard. I -thought his brow darkened at the question, but mayhap it was only a shadow cast by the flickering fire. At any rate, he laughed hardily. “She ‘is well-and ‘well content, I-dare gwear. 'Twas only yesterday I saw her ening was a sooted ,. asked, at ‘passable I had set between thes: taking the air on the river road, with Falconnet for an escort. You told - me once he had a sure hand with the women and it ‘'made me mad; but truly, I have come to think you drew it mild, Jack.” Now though I could ply a decent ready blade, or keep a firing line from lurching at a pinch, I had not learned to put a snaflle on & blundering tongue, as I have said before. . “Damn him as you please, Dick, and he’ll warrant it. But you mést_not judge the lady over harshly, nor always by ap- pearances. Bhe may have flouted you as & boyish lover, and yet I think—" I stopped In sheer bewiiderment, shot through and through with keenest agonies of remorseful recollection. For at the moment I had clean forgot the gulf im- two. So I would have lapsed into shamed stlence, but Jennifer would not suffer it WVell, what is it that you think?’ he demanded. “I think—nay, I may say I know that she thinks well of you, Dick,” I blun- dered on, seeing no way to put him off. He gripped my hand, and In his eyes there was the light of the old love re- awakening. “Don't, lift me up to filng me down again, Jack! How can you know what she thinks of me?" he broke in, eagerly I should have told him then all there was to tell. He had been thrice my savior, and his heart was soft and malle- able ¥n the side of friendship. I knew it —knew that the pregnant moment for full confession had arrived: and yet I couid not force my tongue to shape the word: Indeed, I saw more clearly than befc that never any word of-mine could make him understand that I was not a faith less traltor in intention. So I paltered with the truth, like any wretched coward of them all. “You forget that I have come to know her well” I ald. “I was a month or more under the same roof with her, and in that time she told me m things.” Now, this witless speech was no better t n a whip to fl What thin him on. he questioned, prompt- Iy. *Oh, many things. She spoke often of you.” hat did she say of me, Jack? Tell me what she sald,” he begged. “It can make no difference now; she is less an nothing to me—nay, ’tis even worse than that, since ske would play Delllah if she could. But oh, Jack, I love her!—I shouid love her if I stood on the gallows stood by to spring the drop and me off!” Truly, if the lash of remorse had 1 its keenest thon te burst of his would have added it the less, I must needs be weaker than water and fall back another step and him off. *“‘Another time, Richard. I am stra unnerved and dizzy-headed now. by, when I am stronger, I wi ail" Taking a reproach re none was meant, he sprang up with a sel med maalison upon his lack of care for me, stirred the fi and brewed most delic g cup of And_afterwar hen I had drun broth with some small beckonings ¢ ning appetite, he from the n me to sle ‘If you are w tell yc to you gleaned news was abo dd: The hma: chief of the army In the Horatio Gates, South, and this new leader was on his way to take command. De XKalb, with the Maryland and Dela Armand's legio waiting f are lines and olonel encamped on Deep Ri the newly appointec and Gr Nearer at hand, the Partisan war fire flamed afresh wherever a Tory compa3 and there were met a doings, wicked res than £ the soldier sort. n end of his sma on to t patriot, more war budget, I set him he came to be at h the nick of time on ck. "Twas partly chance,” redcoat troop had me in du nifer House, and while thes hold me at parole, I never gave ¢ to that, and so was kept a prisoner ut me in the winerbin with a d when the fellow was and sfily, T bound and gas broke jail. I took the rive ing to outlie until the bue and cr over, and just at dusk Uncanoola ped upon me and told me of From that to helping him cut y of your raffle with the Cherokees was but a hand’s turn in t *s work.” A lucky turn for m, - at second thought I would deny ing, though not for him to hear. Bu was dangerous ground again, and I clawed off from it like a desperate mari ner tempest-driven on a lee shore, gsk him how he had learned the broadswor play and where he got the antique clay more. he said nce at J affected Jnsent The He laughed heartily, and more like my care-free Dick this time. as good as a woodsman's ax when of swinging it.” ¥ ““Adso, you seemed to have the knack, and the strength as well in spite of the crippled arm you w carrying in a sling the night before when they haled you into Colonel Tarleton's court at Appleby.” “A little ruse of war,” he said, laugh- ing and making a fist to show me his arm was strong and sound again. “'Twas M Gillicuddy put me up to it, saying they would be like to deal the gentler with a wounded man. But how came you to know?"" Here was another chance to tell him what he should be told, but the words would not say themselves. “I stood within arm’s reach of you that night,” said I. and from that I hastened swiftly through the story of my trial as a spy and what it came to in the morning, and never mentioned Margery’s part in it at all. “You have a bitter enemy in Frank Fal- connet,” was his' comment, when I had made an end of this recounting of my ad- ventures. “He knows you are In hiding hereabouts and has been scouring nelghborhood well for you—or, more be- like, for both of us.” “How do you know this?” I asked. “I have both seen and heard. This den of ours opens on the river's edge, and two days since, his Indlans came within an ace of nabbing me. 'Twas just at dusk, and I made out to dodge them by doubling past in the cance.” *But you say you bave heard, as well?"” “Yes. “How?"” “Don’t ask mv the® T said I had no right to ask more than he chose toc tell, and at this he blurted out: an*oath me have the sharp- edged truth “Falconnet has an ally whose wit is shrewder than his. Can you guess who it 157 “'Tis this same Madge Stalr you have been defending, Jack he sald bitterly. “It seems that Falconnet mads sure we had both gone to join the army, which was but natural. If she were less than the spiteful little Tory vixen that she is, she would have been content to let it rest so. But she would not let It rest so. With her own lips she assured Falconnet he still had us to reckon with; nay, mc —she made & boast of it that we would never go so far away from her.” Weak and fever-shaken as I was, I yet made shift to get v elbow feebly y for a lle. flerce, denounecing “Who sland e e this, Dick? Put a name to the cur, and as I live and get my strength a . I'll hunt him down and choke him with that le! Nay,” he objected sobe: hat would be my quarrel, were there ever a peg to hang a quarrel on. But it came by a sure hand and one that i3 friendly enough to all concerned. An old free borderer. hraim Yeates name, brought me the tale. He had been spying round at Appleby Hundred, wagpting to know, for some purpose of his o¥n, why the red- coats and Cherokees were hanging on so long; and this much he overheard one night when he was outlying under the window of the withdrawing-room. He says she was in a passion at the Baronet's slackness, her foot the ta f us. s to shut ght of love isery. was ce co th st incredible her—would go d, in spite of road, and I any on less cruel Jennifer believed thing, and yet he love road ran belfeved b thing and t s hard-hearted g her blindly In spite of it. B me, I satd I would never giv b room; that ess of my Id still have shoes, and Yeates® own eyes ound ing with figure of a stro ed her a D c re into of her bir he flesh. “You say you » her, Dick: can you believe her ¢ this and yet go I asked. his face. on loving her It was haggard ice could I I cannot.” better than hates me good cause to I would trust her 3 k. me down at th 1 fatrly shaped 1 fast hold of sther, and saying ed you, too; and ols of love in- stranger than I, the spell and put nd it, and that I me!” And with swn bed beside the quiet and try to it down and shall-God he went to long past the time measured breath an how I might hunt to myself, hard of the peril did when I woo It I could hear : XVL SHOWING HOW LOVE TOOK TOLL OF FRIENDSHIP. For some few & row escape 2 s after Jennifer's nar- e entrance to our hiding the Cherokees were hot upon our , quar < the forest on both banks e river, determined, as it seemed, to us ot ne of siege that I came wn before, the my dear lad's lifetide was at its ilous and helpless and nurse and e. And later, irly turned and I appetite aga ights abroad and what risks he ran to om the outer world ere outgushing of a 1 to make a bosom world, nor any feminine It I have drawn is but a clumsy quill, gh and masterful, :ngth and vigor of place or starve It was in this t , as I depth temny »ve for me., W ebb and I was weak, he wa and heartening when had de was found my soldler pent ma £ th with all the native str the border-born Bu on the side of love and friendship iad a truer heart, a r. ¢ye or a lfghter hand. And in a e for friend or mistress he would as recklessly as those old knights you read about who made a busi- of their chivalry. With his daily offerings of unselfishness to shame me, you may be sure that I was flayed alive, self-flogged like a miserable e woundings of the whip remorse. As you have guessed, I had not yet summoned up the courage to tell how I had staked his chance of happiness upon a casting of the dle of fate—staked and lost it. Now that it was gone, I saw how I had missed the golden opportunity; how I had weakly hesitated when delay could only make the telling harder. By tacit ccnsent we never spoks of Margery. Richard's silence hung upon despalr, I thought: and as for mine, since the husband's road apd the lover's lay so far apart, I could not bring myself to speak of her. But she was always first in my thoughts in that time of convales- cence, as I made sure she was in his, and at the last the hidden thing between us was brought to light. 1t was on a night some three weeks or more after my fever turn. Our larder had run low again, and Jennifer had spent the earlier hours of the night abroad—to little purpose, as it chanced 'Twas midnight or thereabouts when he came swearing in to tell me that the Torles were out again to harry our side of the river afresh, and to make & refu- monk, with all 1l w salted by