vidual who now inquired for Mr. Davis. Burnt as brown as a Mexican, and with chin innocent of a razor for fifteen months, he presented a very marked contrast to his former self. Besides, the Gerald of former days, though not stout, was still always “in comfortable case," whereas the Gerald of to-day was lean and sinewy as a grayhound; for slapjacks and coffee, however nutritious they may be, are certainly not fattening. Had the spruce young clerk known that the man who was addressing him was one of the lucky investors in mining-stocks, he might have studied to infuse a little more respect into his answer; but neither of them knew it, so Gerald walked out, and strolling into Kearny Street, turned into the Plaza and sat down to kill time as best he could for half an hour. Some of the colony of English sparrows which are located in the Plaza were hopping about and twittering merrily. Their chirrup sounded home-like, and Gerald determined to sell out his stock and go home. Presently, induced by these reflections, and by the warmth of the sun (for California has often as much warmth in winter as in summer), he dropped off into a doze. From this he was presently aroused by voices near him -a man's, angry and impatient; a woman's, reproachful and pleading. There was something in this latter voice that made him open his eyes and gaze in its direction. On an adjacent seat were a man and a woman, shabbily dressed and evidently very poor. The man had all the appearance, with his muddy clothes and broken boots and whisky-besotted face, of a habitual "bummer." The woman's face he could not see. It was turned toward the man, and she was speaking very earnestly to him in a voice Gerald could not help fancying he recognized. man treated woman," she was saying. "You won't work, you won't look for work, you'll do nothing but loaf around low groggeries, and you're happy enough if you can bum a drink. I'm sure I wonder why I stay with you." "I'm sure it's not because I press you to," answered the man, in a voice hoarse and cracked from liquor; "I've told you to git often enough, I'm sure. You wouldn't want to be shown the door so often if you'd any proper pride left." "Pride!" she said bitterly-"O, I left all that behind me when I took up with. you. I might have known that the man who was ungrateful to his friend wouldn't scruple to throw off on a poor helpless woman he had betrayed; but O! Lawrence, if I had known it was for a drunken sot like you that I was sacrificing the truest kindest love that ever a woman won, I'd have ————" The conversation here was suddenly interrupted. Not a word that had passed had been lost upon Gerald, and long before the last words had put the matter beyond a doubt he had become convinced that he was listening to Ruth. He rose from his place and walked over to where they sat, and confronted them. His face was ashy pale even beneath its dark tanning, his lips were tightly compressed, and his eyes were flaming like coals beneath his bent brows. They both recognized him instantly, despite the alteration in his appearance-as instantly and as easily as he recognized them, though they also were changed in many ways. Ruth looked up in his face with the mute expression of appealing agony that comes into the eyes of a helpless hunted creature when it has made its last. effort to escape and is constrained to submit to its fate. She looked worn and much older, and the deathly pallor of her cheek was but heightened by the rouge she had used to conceal it. As Ger "You have treated me worse than ever ald encountered the mute misery of her VOL. 15.-33. eye his glance softened, but as he turned it on her companion it expressed all the loathing and contempt which the human eye can convey. He had never suspected Paget. It had never occurred to him to suspect anyone, and it was only the statement of his China-boy that his wife had gone away with a "belly fine man," that had induced him to consider it an elopement rather than an unattended flight. As he glared down into the whisky - brutalized face before him, the full force of the crime, the enormous turpitude of the deceit, came fully before him, and he could only hiss out: "Well, false friend-viperous seducer-what do you think of your conduct now?" His voice seemed to break the spell which had hitherto held Paget immovable in his seat. With a hoarse cry he leaped to his feet, and, darting through the nearest gate, ran down Washington Street at the top of his speed. The moment he recovered from the surprise into which this unexpected movement threw him, Gerald started in pursuit, and kept his prey in sight as he turned up Montgomery Street. Paget turned into the first saloon that he encountered, which at that hour was crowded with gentlemen enjoying their before-dinner cocktails. As Paget, halfwild with terror, burst into their midst, he created no small sensation. "What's the matter with the fellow? Is he crazy or drunk?" asked several voices; but Paget crushed himself into the middle of a group, ejaculating: "O! save me, gentlemen; there is a man following me to shoot me!" He had scarcely uttered these words, when Gerald, looking hardly less wild than the other, flung open the door and stood a moment glaring round the room in search of the object of his pursuit. Just as he caught Paget's eye he observed him pass his hand behind him, and, divining the object of the motion, drew immediately. Paget was a few seconds in advance, and fired his first shot before Gerald cocked his pistol. The expensive plate-glass in the swingdoors cracked sharply as the bullet passed through it above the head of Gerald. Then two explosions rung out nearly simultaneously. Langley half-turned round and staggered back against the wall. Lawrence, with his pistol still in his hand, ran forward toward the door. Some of the by-standers sprung to intercept him, thinking he was advancing to attack the wounded man, but ere a hand could touch him he fell to the ground a corpse. The bullet of the injured husband had found its billet in the heart of the seducer. "Say, Tom, were you present when the shooting-scrape was on, t'other evenin'?" "You bet! and I wanted to get out the worst way in the world, but couldn't. I was standin' as near to Paget, the feller that got shot, as I am to you. Precious lucky it was that he did any wild shooting that was done; not but that the practice was very pretty on both sides. I tell you, there were a dozen fellers all behind and around Paget who couldn't get away. I know when I saw the other feller, Langley, bringin' up his pistol I wished to be as thin as a knife- blade. I thought he couldn't help but hit me, the way he had it pointed. However, he plugged him, plumb centre, I must allow, and hurt nobody. And richly the cuss deserved it." "Then you agree with the verdict?” "You bet I agree with it! Why, no one could call it anything but self-defense. The feller fired first, and had his second shot, if anything, a little in advance, too. Why, he'd have blazed away every chamber in his six-shooter, if the other feller hadn't chipped in and blocked his little game. Besides, Langley's wounded." "That's so; I didn't think of that. Nothing serious, is it?" "O no; somewhere about the shoulder. The ball's out, and he's doing well." "He's a lucky devil, that Langley." "How so?" "Why, he got two thousand dollars into Consolidated over a year ago, and he's cleaned up now with considerable on the right side of a quarter of a million." "Lucky devil! I suppose he'll shake the dust of California from his feet now?" "Yes; he starts for Europe as soon `as his arm's all right. By the by, I wonder what's to become of the little girl that all the trouble was about." "I believe he's made some provision for her. She's awfully cut up over the whole business, as indeed she ought to be. Going to the theatre to-night?" "Very likely, if nothing better turns up. See you there?" And so it fell out that Gerald Langley's fortune was made. When his wound permitted he went overland to New York, and took the first steamer for Liverpool. He scarcely realized at first, as he neared his native shores, that the events of the last few years had actually been real. It seemed like a story he had read, not like a life-scene in which he had been an actor. And how changed were his circumstances! He had left the Mersey with a light heart and an empty pocket; he had for companions a wife he loved and friend he trusted. He shuddered as he thought of the latter. Now the giant steamer swung-to in the river as she felt the check of her anchors, and the screaming busy tender was alongside to take the passengers ashore. What was he bringing back with him? Neither wife nor friend. Nothing but a heart very full of strangely mingled feelings, and a quarter of a million dollars. THE POWER OF TEARS. [FROM THE GERMAN OF LEITNER.] With comfort sweet as from a fount runs o'er the holy tear, There dwells in these clear waters a secret power to cure, Which lulls the pain and soothes the smart-a balsam kind and sure; Growing as grows thy misery, it lifts and rolls away The evil stone that would have crushed the heart whereon it lay. I, too, have felt its power, here in the sorrow-land, When flower-laden by the loved ones' graves I took my stand; And should there wind around thee a shroud of troublous night, T FIVE MILES ON A KEEL. HE harbor of Swatow, China, opening as it does toward the north-east, and being of considerable extent, presents a wide field for the strong gales that frequently, during the continuance of a north-east monsoon, rage along the China Sea, to the dread of the mariners, foreign and native, who are endeavoring to make any of the northern China ports or the harbors of Japan. Double Island -two high hills at either end, that have the appearance from a distance of being two islands, give it its name-lies at the mouth of the harbor, very near the south shore. Between it and the main - land on the south is a narrow deep channel used by steamers and incoming sailingvessels. On the north side the water is shallower, and the distance between the island and main - land much greater, being in fact over a mile. The town of Swatow lies on the north shore of the bay, five miles from Double Island. Opposite and a little over a mile away is the small hamlet of Kak-chio, where many of the foreigners reside, I being of the number during my stay in the place. Those of us whose offices were in Swatow used (weather permitting) to cross in the morning and return in the afternoon. On both sides of the channel leading from the anchorage off Swatow to the harbor's mouth at Double Island, and at irregular intervals, are rows of heavy stakes anchored securely, and connected by a stout rope to which the Chinese fishermen attach their nets during the ebb-tide. The nets are in shape like an eel-pot, and are of such huge dimensions and so heavily weighted that they reach nearly to the bottom of the harbor. Vessels leaving the anchorage off the town for sea usually take two tides, during the north-east mon soon, to get over the bar; reaching the island on the first tide, and standing out to sea with the second. These particulars are necessary to explain an ugly ride I had one dark stormy night in January, 186–. I had been dining in Swatow that evening, and about eleven o'clock determined to start for home, though urged by friends not to do so. The wind had been blowing a gale all day, and though it had lulled a bit at sundown, it was still strong enough to make a very heavy sea as it met a strong ebb-tide. My boat, a four-oared gig, was rigged to carry a lug-sail, and was a good seacraft; so I determined to run across the harbor under small sail, rather than submit to the drenching showers of spray I knew would fly from the oars if we pulled across. When I bade the boatmen (four stout Chinamen) put up the mast and close-reef the sail, they, for the first and only time during my entire experience with them) remonstrated, declaring that the wind was too strong and the sea too heavy to think of such a thing. repeated my order in a sharp tone, and they reluctantly obeyed. After pushing off from the wharf, we shot over the still water in-shore at a tremendous pace. I was just congratulating myself on a comfortable sail home, and rejoicing in my forethought in saving myself from a wet jacket, when we ran into the tide-way and a tremendous sea. I saw in a moment that I had made a sad mistake, but my foolish pride kept me from acknowledging it to the boatmen, and, instead of ordering them to lower the sail and man the oars, I stood on, hoping to pull through somehow or other. I For a few moments I succeeded in keeping the boat from broaching-to or "ducking" under one of the long and curling waves; but, when just about the middle of the harbor, a fearful roller threw her broadside to the sea, where, as the sail was close-reefed and therefore very low, we lay for an instant becalmed between two huge glistening combing waves, and then shot up on top of the third one. The wind struck us so suddenly and at such a disadvantage, that in a twinkling the boat was turned bottom upward, and we five men were floundering in the cold water. Fortunately we could all swim well, and-guided by the voice of the stroke - oarsman, who had hung on to the sheet when the boat went over, and had scrambled upon her-succeeded in getting to the boat, and crawled on her keel, where we sat astride. Those four Chínamen proved themselves "trumps" that night, for they made me ride in the middle, and sat facing me, two behind and two before me; and when, as happened more than once during that frightful ride, I slipped from my precarious seat, and was in imminent danger of sinking beneath the black cold water that seemed so anxious to ingulf me, there was always one to come to the rescue and ready to help me back again. Imagine our feelings! Drifting out to sea on the bottom of a small boat; the waves running as nearly "mountain high" as is possible in five fathoms of water; the wind whistling about our wet shivering bodies, chilling us to the very marrow, and the night so dark that I could barely distinguish the figure of the Chinaman who sat scarcely six feet from me. At intervals for about fifteen minutes we called lustily for help, and then listened, O! so eagerly, for an answering cry; but none came, and finally we gave it up, knowing that we were too far from shore and too far below the shipping for the lookouts to hear us above that roaring sea. Then came the frightful thought, "Suppose we drift into the nets!" If we had, not one of us would have escaped, for none could have held on to the ropes until the change of tide, and letting go meant being carried to the bottom of the nets and sure death. How fast we drifted we could not tell, and therefore had no idea where we were or when we had passed the last of the terrible fish-stakes, until-it seemed a life-time, though it could not have been over two hours and a half from the time we capsized-we suddenly passed close to a vessel. I knew instantly it must be the bark Moldavian, which had left the anchorage at Swatow that morning, and was now waiting at Double Island for the weather to clear up before putting to sea. I told my boatmen to yell as loud as they could to attract the attention of the lookout; and they did, too, good fellows! Then, bidding them keep quiet, I called at the top of my voice, to which desperation lent a power it never had before or since: "Moldavian, ahoy!" This was repeated three or four times before we got too far away from her, and then we waited. they heard us? If so, had they distinguished my call, and would they send a boat to rescue a foreigner? If they had only heard the yells without distinguishing my hail, it was doubtful if they would risk the lives of a boat's-crew to save a few Chinamen. If they had not heard at all, of course our last chance of rescue was gone; for we knew we were passing the island, and would soon be on the bar, whose angry thundering we could already hear above the roar of the waters around us. Once let us reach it, we might say good-by to all earthly things. Had How terrible was that agony of suspense! It is a wonder to me that my hair did not turn gray. Indeed, I wonder that I was not driven crazy. It seemed hours since we shot past that black outline now so far from us. I had |
