The islands of adventure

Chapter I

Once upon a time there was a Chinese noveUst who spent all his working life in the writing of one story. He was a gentleman of independent fortune, so we have no reason to suppose him a fool. His heirs published his work in one hundred and two volumes. It has been read by at least three people, all of them imperial librarians, and is still highly respected in the Far East. It is a good story ; indeed, it is hundreds of good stories ; but as a monument to the conscientious scruples and energy of its author, rather than as a work of fiction, does it make its surest claim upon immortality.

I think of that honourable literary gentleman of China and his one-hundred-and-two-volume novel with sympathy and profound respect. The story popped into his head one day when he was enjoying the summer of the nineteenth year of his life. He sat down to dash it off on rice-paper, his inky brush trembling in his eager fingers ; and then he paused to reflect.

He turned the eyes of his mind inward, I seeking through the flashing, tender, and heroic pictures the exact point of contact between his hero and that first particular incident in which lay the seed from which would spring all the clashing adventure and melting sentiment that glowed behind his forehead. He found the point of contact and that first particular incident. Again he wet his brush.

But no ! The beginning was not there ! That incident was not the seed, but a sturdy branch of the half -grown plant. So he looked deeper and further, deeper and further, still deeper and further. The ink dried on his brush. The brush slipped from his fingers. He clasped his head in his hands. Where was the beginning ?

At last, in despair, he wrote — the end of the story. It was dramatic, romantic, convincing, conclusive, altogether admirable. From that he wrote back toward the beginning, day after day, month after month, year after year, firm in the belief that he ^yould know the beginning when he came to it. He died in the eighty-first year of his age, with his great story not yet begun, though long since concluded, and his heirs— who did not inherit his literary conscience — published the monumental record and result of his backward quest.

Sometimes, between sleeping and waking, I feel so deep a sympathy for that ancient CelestiaFs reversed method of composition that I doubt horribly if any story has ever been really begun of all the thousands that have been adequately finished.

Does this story of mine begin with the beginning of Rum Island, I wonder ? I should be sorry to think so, for, unlike the conscientious Chinese novelist, I lack an independent fortune.

The island was begun and completed long ago. Industrious coral zoophytes built it, lifting it /gradually through the blue depths and at last clear of the surface of the sea. As far as I know, however, they didn't name it. It is pleasant to think that it may have been named by a marooned pirate reduced to feeling temporary contentment with his sad lot by the discovery of a cask of spirits.

A germ of my story came to life when the Santa Maria set sail from Palos to carry soldiers and priests and adventurers away to the west, and to bring gold and silver home to the Spanish king. Another germ stirred when the keel of Drake's ship, the Elizabeth Bonadventure, was laid. Another — but enough of this ! I turn my back on these germs as on the busy little zoophytes of the coral.

Andrew Lemont Costin was one of those marvels of industry, endurance, tact, and knowledge of popular taste in fiction who hold in their fingers the entertainment of millions and the careers of hundreds. He was an astounding product of the amazing activity of the publishers of to-day*

He was an editor of magazines. There have been editors in the past, I know ; but Cost in and his kind resemble the leisurely, consequential persons who constructed the periodicals of a generation ago as an aeroplane resembles that quaint contraption of wooden-framed wings covered with bed-sheets with which a trusting monk of old once flew from the roof of his monastery to the paved courtyard below.

It was one of Costings boasts that no other supereditor in the world read more manuscripts in the course of a year than he read, rejected more than he r ej ected, and yet accepted so many. Figured out, it seems queer ; and yet it was probably true. He dictated scores of letters every day. It was child's play to him. He shaped the lives of men even as he shaped the products of their brains. Crops of fiction were sown at his suggestion and ripened to his taste in far-flung corners of the world.

He plucked Captain Hamilton out of India and established him on Long Island with a typewriter and a motor-car ; and the captain was only one of dozens whose habitations and affairs were affected by Costings thirst for fiction. In his spare time he went fishing, ran over to Europe and back, and wrote histories.

Precisely at eleven o'clock of a certain June morning Costin finished dictating to Miss Featherstonhaugh the twenty-third and last of a batch of letters. After this brisk bit of work.

instead of lighting a cigar and looking out of the window, he snatched a wad of typewritten pages from a drawer of his desk and began to read. As Miss Featherstonhaugh left the editor's presence by one door, another young woman entered it by another, and placed a small engraved card on the page under the great man's eye. That eye did not flicker. Neither did the other.

Please show him right in," said Cost in. The young woman, who had read the card while in the act of delivering it, returned to the waiting-room.

Please go right in, Mr. Bow-champ," she requested.

The young man whom she addressed complied with her request with an air of astonishment and confusion. Cpstin stood up and extended a hand.

Here you are, Mr. Beauchamp ! " he said.

Fm glad to see you."

The editor pronounced the name like a well-known patent pill, which seemed to have a soothing effect on the visitor.

How d'ye do, Mr. Costin ? Thanks very much," said Beauchamp.

His hat and stick were taken away from him, and he was invited to accept a cigarette. He was a pleasant-looking young Englishman of a somewhat diffident but decidedly engaging manner. His close-cut hair was so dark as to appear black at the first glimpse. His wideset eyes were grey just warming to blue. His complexion was neither high nor low, his features were slightly irregular and in no way remarkable ; and yet the general effect of hair, eyes, complexion, features, and expression was not only pleasing but distinguished.

For several seconds the two men regarded each other smilingly, but with lively curiosity in their eyes.

So you took my advice/' said Costin.

Rather ! returned Beauchamp.

Just landed, I suppose ? Did you have a good crossing ?

Docked at a quarter past nine. Yes, a good crossing, thanks.''

I am reading your ' Barry Newton ' yarn. It scores a bull's-eye, it rings the bell, it brings a coco-nut to earth. But I want to ask you something. This Caroline person, now ? She's about as convincing as a tobacco advertisement, and about as lively as a game of croquet. And so it was with Dolly Burchill of your ' Windy River ' story. You handle your wild women and squaws and fisher folk females as brilliantly as you do your men and dogs and ships and ice-packs — and more than that I can't say ; but when it comes to the only kind of woman that you really know, I suppose, you go sidewise into a hole in the ground. What's the matter with you, that you can't make anything more entrancing than a corn-cob doll when you set your hand to a Miss Bur chill or a Caroline Nevill ? Tell me that, my son, and ITl take you out to lunch. ITl take you to lunch anyway."

Charles Beauchamp dropped his cigarette .to the floor and recovered it fumblingly. He sat back in his chair with a flushed face.

''I'm sorry,'' he said, smiling. ''I've often wondered if you'd noticed it. You're very good not to have criticized me for it long before this."

" I thought I'd better wait until I'd seen you and sized you up," returned Costin. "It is a small matter, anyway ; and I'm no knocker. Of course, if you had packed more than one of those hanks of hair into any one story, I'd have braced my feet and set up a holler. As it is, it doesn't matter so much ; but I'm relieved to find that you have noticed it yourself."

" I think the trouble is that girls of that sort don't really seem to belong in my stories," said Beauchamp. " Some of my sister's friends strike me as being very agreeable and charming, and all that sort of thing ; but no one of them has ever suggested possibilities of romantic adventure outside of cities and big country houses. It is my own fault, I know. To a lesser degree it is the same with men and places. The things and people I only half know seem to me far more picturesque and romantic and worth inventing yarns about than the people and things Tm forced to sit around with and drink tea with at home."

You'll do ! " exclaimed the editor. As soon as you really know something about the kind of young woman that you think you know all about, you'll do better still. Don't worry! Some day you'll see that a girl does not have to make her own gowns out of deer-skins and porcupine-quills to possess possibilities of romantic adventure outside of cities and big country houses. Now, if you will run out and amuse yourself for a little while, and come back in an hour, we'll repair together to a place I know and there eat and talk and make merry."

Right ! " said Beauchamp cheerily, rising from his chair and arming himself with his hat and stick.

Costin bowed his head again over the manuscript and concentrated his vision and his mind upon the adventures of Barry Newton. Unnoticed by him, his visitor went to a door, opened it, crossed the threshold, and closed the door behind him.

It was the wrong door. Instead of finding himself in the anteroom, where sat the young woman who had admitted him to the editor, James found himself in the presence of Miss Featherstonhaugh.

''I beg your pardon," he said. ''Not the way I got in, I'm afraid. My mistake."

''Don't mention it/' she replied. You can go out by this way just as well as by the other/'

She stood up and continued to regard him pleasantly but intently. He returned her gaze politely but with interest, attracted by her general appearance, and particularly by her eyes. They were remarkable eyes, well shaped and well placed, the pupils large and as black as midnight, and the irises as brown and as warmly tinted as old mahogany. Her face and brow and throat were very white, with just a tinge of pink in each smooth cheek. Her plentiful hair was auburn, lighter and brighter than her eyes by a single tone and tint.

I believe you are Mr. Beauchamp — Charles Beauchamp,'' she continued. " We published your photograph in our announcements for this year. I have read a number of your stories.'*

Charles blushed and beamed and let fall his hat and stick. The hat, which was of hard straw, rolled around the room. While Charles waltzed after the hat, Miss Feat her stonhaugh picked up the stick.

" I think ' Shark Reef ' is the best thing you have done," she said. ''I love those islands and that sea and everything true and fine that is written about them."

Before Charles could find words in which to express his delight, a puff of wind leaped into the room through an open window, snatched a stack of freshly typed letters from a corner of the desk, and sent the stiff sheets planing and swooping into the air like a flock of rooks from the top of a tree. Some of them reached the ceiling before the wind turned and popped out by the way it had entered ; then down came the flock of letters, wabbling and swooping, tapping against the walls and quartering the open.

That chap is shaping for the window,'' exclaimed Beauchamp. HeTl make it on this tack. By George, he has done it !

He sprang to the open window and looked out. He saw the square of white paper planing slowly and unsteadily down through the sunshine toward the wide, pygmy-packed thoroughfare ten floors below. He withdrew from the window and jumped for a door.

I'll retrieve it ! he cried.

He was out of the room and away before the amused and astonished young woman could even begin to explain to him that she could make another copy of that unimportant letter in thirty seconds.

He found an elevator ready, shot into it, and sped down. He passed the marble-fixtured newspaper-stand on the ground floor at top speed, and issued upon Broadway with a small messenger-boy in his arms, whom he had gathered up between the elevator and the revolving doors to avoid trampling him under foot. He deposited the dumbfounded boy on the pavement and sHpped him a silver coin, even while his eyes scanned the wide canon of the street.

He saw the flake of swooping, zigzagging' white half a block away and not more than thirty feet above the heads of the crowd. He bolted for it, dodging and shouldering his way through the hurrying throngs. He got under the swooping object of his chase, jumped up at it, struck at it with his hat, and missed it.

A thick hand descended upon his left shoulder. Butterfly-hunt in' ain't permitted on Broadway," said a gruff voice in his ear.

That letter ! That sheet of paper ! '' exclaimed Charles, twisting aside and clutching upward with both hands.

Again he missed it ; and a puff of wind put it up again, sliding and wabbling. The fever of the chase awoke in the bulging breast of the policeman, and he also made an upward heave and a futile grab.

Two crowded and hurried streams of humanity parted before the hunters, wondering. Now forward, now to the left, and now to the right went Beauchamp and the limb of the law, with their heads back, their eyes and arms aloft.

Down came the letter on a fluttering slant, and at the same instant they seized it, each with a hand. They swung inward and came together, still holding the paper aloft between them. Their legs got crossed and they stumbled and swayed, clung to each other and to the crumpled letter, backed into some one with a silk hat, and toppled to the pavement.

The person with the hat went to the mat with them, hopelessly involved with Beauchamp's legs and the policeman's chest. The crowd cheered.

Beauchamp, being the youngest and most active of the three, was the first to scramble to his feet. He came up with his own hat buckled in his right hand and the stranger's silk headgear spitted upon his left wrist. Then up came the policeman, dusty, winded, grasping the letter in both big fists, and glaring at it indignantly.

The owner of the silk hat was the last to arise. He was an elderly man. In stature he was one size too short, and two sizes too broad at the shoulders. His face was white with anger among and behind iron-grey whiskers.

What's the meaning of this ? " he cried, and snatched his broken hat off Beauchamp' s wrist.

Infernal outrage ! New hat ! "

" Very sorry, sir," said Beauchamp. My fault entirely. Letter blew away. Buy you a new hat. Where's the letter ? "

I got the letter," said the policeman in a voice of heavy irony. A derned fine letter to go knockin' people down about— only five lines to it ! Yer name Smith — H. Bellington Smith ? Move on, ladies and gents, move on. Ye're obstructin' traffic. This ain't a dog-fight. A private matter between me an' me gentleman friend here.''

And me," said the short, broad, elderly man with the broken hat.

No, it isn't my letter," said Beauchamp to the policeman. ''It may be. Fact is, I don't know who it was written to. It blew out of a window up there — Thompson-Johnson Magazine Publishing Company, you know — and I volunteered to get it. Sorry to have caused such a commotion."

Ain't you Bellington Smith, then ? "

No — no, indeed."

Then it ain't yer letter at all ? "

No, it's not mine. I just offered to pick it up."

What's yer name, young man ? " Beauchamp — Charles Beauchamp." " What's yer trade— roUin' pills ? "

No," replied Charles sharply.

He drew a card from one pocket, a two-dollar bill from another, and handed both to the strong chest of the law.

Give me the letter, please," he said. I'm greatly obliged to you for your assistance."

The policeman handed over the crumpled square of paper, pocketed the bill, and stared at the card. His lips moved. His brows puckered.

B-E-A-U-C-H-A-M-P," he muttered.

B-e-a-u spells boo, or maybe bo. C-h-a-m-p spells champ. This here don't spell Beechim, blame me if it do !

But Charles heard nothing of the officer's comment, for he was making his way through the moving throng at a swift walk. Neither did the broad, elderly man hear it, for he had clapped his broken hat on his head and followed Charles. ■

Charles entered the Thompson- Johnson Building with the stranger close at his heels. Together they were shot aloft to the editorial regions, the young man with a crumpled letter in one hand and a crumpled hat in the other, the elderly man with a wrecked lid more or less in place and empty hands. They left the elevator together.

One moment, if you please,'' said the senior.

Charles turned and recognized him. The deuce ! " he exclaimed. And then :

I beg your pardon. A new hat, of course. All my fault. Will five dollars buy one ? "

Forget the hat ! " retorted the stranger.

Beauchamp, hey ? A son of Algernon Beauchamp, of Wallengore, near Sturminster, by any chance ? "

You've said it," replied Charles, staring. But what "

One moment. Do you live in New York ? "

Landed this morning. I expect to be here for some time. But what do you know

One moment. Are you employed in this building ? What's your address ?

Not exactly. I do work for one of these magazines. But what do you know of Wallengore, and "

Not much/' interrupted the stranger again. That is to say, not recently. ITl think it over. Good morning ! ''

He turned and rang for a downward passage. A door in the caged shaft opened for him. He stepped into the elevator. The openwork door slid into place between himself and Charles.

Half a second ! Who the deuce are you ? cried Charles.

Your Uncle Peter/' answered the other, as the elevator dropped and vanished.

Charles found Miss Feat her stonhaugh clicking .away. She looked up at him with laughter in her extraordinary eyes and a quickening of the pink in her cheeks. He smoothed out the crumpled letter on the desk beside her.

Here it is/' he said. I had a run for

it."

Oh, thank you ever so much ! " she exclaimed. I watched you from the window. It was wonderful ! You knocked over three people, not counting the big policeman and the old gentleman in the silk hat. Mr. Costin and i6 THE BEGINNING

I nearly fell out of the window, we laughed so hard. He bet you would be arrested, and I took him — and I won a pound of hard centres, fork-dipped.''

Did Costin see it ? " asked Charles with a flicker of concern in his voice.

'"He missed the very first of it," she replied. 'M called to him to come and look. He loves excitement."

At that moment the inner door opened, and Costin entered. He advanced upon Charles, beaming.

A great run! " he exclaimed. Fine action and fine execution. You get what you go after, evidently. You Britishers ! Hard of head and hard of shin, you see what you think you want and go after it, bang through the thick of things. Perhaps it is something worth having, and more likely it isn't. Is that right. Miss Featherstonhaugh ? "

It sounds right," replied the young woman.

That's near enough," returned the editor. He gripped Charles by an elbow. Come along now and we'll eat," he said.

They ate rather extensively, and took their time about it, in a quiet corner of the oakpanelled and wainscoted dining-room of Costin's club.

Costin was an accomplished and whimsical talker. Beauchamp listened with both ears and the surface of his mind, but all the while his inner thought was stirred by the last words of the elderly man whose hat he had broken.

Your Uncle Peter/' the fellow had said. It was wildly improbable. It was absurd. It was a joke in questionable taste and absolutely devoid of humour. But even so, how came that elderly, broad person to know that Beauchamp had ever possessed an uncle named Peter ?

Charles missed nothing of all that Costin said. Now and again he made an apt comment or put a pertinent question ; and he did justice to the luncheon. It was half past two when they parted at the door of the club.

You'll be sure to look me up on Friday, at three o'clock ? said Costin. You will hear from me in the meantime.'' It was now Tuesday.

I'll be there, sharp on time," said Beauchamp.

Costin walked purposefully off toward Broadway and another bout of reading, while Charles strolled aimlessly around the high iron fence of Gramercy Park.

But for the enigma of that elderly stranger Charles Beauchamp would at that moment have enjoyed a condition of spiritual, mental, and physical bliss. As it was, he felt uneasy, like one who hears a strange noise in his sleep and awakes suddenly, unable to decide whether the i8 THE BEGINNING sound was of the world of dreams or the world of realities.

The elderly person's astounding statement was a lie, of course ; but even so, why had he told such an absurd lie ? Who was he ? And what did he know of Peter Finlay and of the Beauchamps of Wallengore ?

Chapter II

Charles Beauchamp went around the little park four times, slowly, wondering about the stranger's incredible statement, and trying to recall to his mind all that he had ever heard of his Uncle Peter. What he knew of Peter Finlay amounted to this :

Peter was born in 1850, the second of a family of five. His father was the vicar of Sturminster at the time. Early in life, the boy had evinced a reckless and unruly spirit, at home as well as at school. On his fifteenth birthday he had been violently and painfully thrashed by the vicar for playing pirate to the extent of blindfolding his young brother John— who afterward became an archdeacon — and his little sister Jane — who grew up to marry Algernon Beauchamp, Esq., of Wallengore — and walking them both along a plank and off into the muddy depths of the duck-pond.

The victims had been rescued, with no small difficulty, by the sexton-gardener. Peter had taken his thrashing sullenly. He could not be found anywhere next day ; and the same may be said of five pounds, seven shiUings, and sixpence, in gold and silver, which the vicar had carelessly left in an unlocked drawer of his writing-table.

Nothing was seen or heard of the boy for three weeks, when a letter from him reached the vicarage, stating that he was sailing from Liverpool for Brazil aboard a barkantine, in the capacity of cabin-boy.

Nothing more was heard from him for five years, and then the local postman delivered to the vicar a triple-sealed registered package, which, when cut open, disgorged well-thumbed milreis notes to the value of five pounds, seven shillings, and sixpence. No letter was enclosed ; but the family rejoiced, for it was quite evident to them that Peter was alive and prosperous, and intended to be honest, though he had not thought of adding five years' interest to the sum he returned.

As the vicar was a sentimentalist at heart — as many of those thrashing fathers are — and not particularly in need of a few pounds, the bulky packet of milreis notes was deposited in the very drawer from which its English equivalent had been lifted five years before.

Two years later, on a bright August morning, Peter himself turned up at the vicarage. He was prodigiously tanned and roughened as to both face and language. He said that he held the berth of second mate of a full-rigged ship that was then discharging sugar at Liverpool, and had obtained five days of leave in which to gladden the hearts of his parents and sisters and brothers.

He did not remain at the vicarage until the termination of his leave, however, and the effect of his visit upon the hearts of his family was of a shocking rather than a gladdening nature. At the end of three days he packed his box and drove away in a carrier's cart. He paused at the Blue Swan long enough to consume a bottle of rum, and to beat a gentleman farmer from the other side of the county into a state of heavy unconcern ; and since then not a whisper had been heard of him until the elderly stranger in the broken hat had said that incredible thing to Charles Beauchamp.

Charles returned to his hotel and sat down by the open window of his room to smoke a pipe. He even unpacked the manuscript of a halfwritten story, arranged it on a marble-topped table, and picked several flakes of tobacco out of the nib of his fountain-pen; but all in vain. He could not get his mind off his Uncle Peter.

He finished his pipe, and stared at page fiftysix of his story until his eyes watered.

This is no place to work in ! he exclaimed.

I must get out and look for decent diggings. Confound Uncle Peter !

A sharp ringing at his elbow drew his attention to a contraption which he recognized as some manner of telephonic instrument. He wasn't accustomed to things of this sort at his elbow. Like thousands of other enlightened Englishmen, he considered telephones to be unnecessary evils. He had lived at home in London and roamed about the world very comfortably without any assistance from such jangling intruders as this. Now he closed with it fretfully.

Mr. Beauchamp ?

Yes."

One moment.'' ''Mr. Beauchamp ? " queried another voice. " Yes."

''It is Victoria Feather stonhaugh speaking — Mr. Costin's stenographer, you know. A special-delivery letter has just come here for you. Do you want me to send it around to you ? "

"It's very good of you to think of it, Miss Featherstonhaugh. Who is it from ? "

" I don't know. It's a letter. I haven't opened it."

" Of course not. A letter ? Where is it ? "

" I have it. It's here on my desk."

" ITl go for it. Will you wait ? I'll start immediately."

"I'll wait ; but it is nearly four o'clock, so please hurry."

Charles hurried. Thoughts of Peter Finlay slipped out of his mind, and thoughts of tea and Miss Featherstonhaugh took their place. He was thirsty and lonely. The distractions of the day had upset him to such an extent that he did not give a second thought to the letter of which he had just heard. In five motions he changed his collar and tie ; in five more he doffed a grey suit and donned a blue one ; in two more he put on a new straw hat and took up his stick.

Charles found Miss Featherstonhaugh where hfe had last seen her ; but now she wore a hat, and the typewriter had vanished from the surface of her desk. She handed him the letter. He thrust it into a pocket without glancing at it.

You have been so very kind, bothering about my letters and all that sort of thing, I hope you'll be kinder still,'' he said with a pleasant air of eager diffidence.

It is part of my work to bother myself about our authors," she replied with a faint smile on her flawless lips and a veiled glimmer of inquiry in her remarkable eyes.

Charles blushed.

Tm lonely,'' he said. So many peoplfe all around, and all of them strangers. The moment I heard your voice on the telephone I hoped that you would have tea with me somewhere— you are so good-natured."

She laughed softly and her cheeks grew pink.