CHAPTER XV. * THe Masked Voice. For a matter of twelve hours the, 'fog, leaden, dank, viscous, is inexors able. as the dominion of evil, had wrapped the world in an embrace ae | and noxious as the coils of some great, gray, slimy serpent. Through its sluggish folds the pon- powerdmpelled lifeboat crept & snail's pace, its stem parting and rolling back from either flank a heavy hearted ses of gray. In the bows a young woman rested An a state of ations her uyes closed, he lowed on a cork: belt life-praserver, her sodden gar- 'merits modeled closely to the slender body that was ever and again shaken from head to feet with the strength of a long, shuddering respiration. . Beated on the nearest thwart, Alan Law, chin fu band, watched over the rest of this woman whom he loved with & grimly Bopeless solicitude. He was in no happier ease than she, so far 'as physical comlort went--he was in worse, since he might not rest, Premonition of misfortune darkened Bis heart with its impenctrable shadow, In_the stern Tom Barcus presided morosely over the steering gear; and 'Law wes no more jealously heedful of his sweetheart than Barcus of the heavy-duty motor that chugged away so purposefully at its business of drive ing the bodl. heaven-knew-where, Lacking at once a compass. all no- tion whatsoever of the sun's and any immediate hope of fog lifting or chance Jrinehe them ither "to land or to rescue larger and less comfortless . Barcus steered mainly through forte of. habit ~the salt-water man's instinctive feel ing that no boat under way should! evor in any condelvable circumstance be without a hand at the helm. It had seemed Impossible that it could long escape repetition of the disaster, but somehow, it. always did escape, and ! that by a wide margin; never once had it passed pear erough to another vessel to see It. . And how for more than an hour the silence had heen uncannily constant, broken only by the rumble of the me- tor, the muted Hep of water slipping | + down the side, the suck and gurgle of the wake, Forebodings no less portentous than Law's crawled fn the mind of Barcus. It was as likely as not that the life- boat was traveling straight out to sea. And gasoline tanks can and oftentimes €0 become as empty as an official weather prophet's promise of fair 'weather for a holiday. a of ma- rine Ooh on ---- of long and intimate experience with the ways of Into the Hands of the Enemy. the demon of perversity that tenants them one and all, he knew that the present sweettempered performance of the exhibit under consideration Was no eamest whatsoever of future 800d behavior, that when such a com- plicaled . contraption was concerned thers was never any telling . , . In view of all of which considera- And the aching void created in the silence by the cessation of that uni: form drone 'was startling enough to ue vn, Rate Trine from her state rings. | . Alan ghcok himself together. "Im- possible!" he contended. "I saw her go down EIR "That doesn't prove she didn't come up." Barcue commented acidly. "Ahoy! Motorboat aho-o-0y! Help!" "And that," Barcus pursued sadly, "just proves she did come up--blame the luck! Alive she is, and kicking: stand clear. An able-bodied pair of lungs was back of that hail, my friend; and you needn't tell me I don't know the dulcet accents of that angelic con- traito!" Without heeding him, Alan cupped hands to mouth and sent an answer- ing ery ringing through the murk: "Ahoy! Where are you? Where away?" "Here--on the reef--half-drowned-- ! perishing with ehill--" "How does my voice bear? Alan called back. "What the dickens do you care?" Barcus interpolated suspiciuosly. I "T¢ port," the response rang through the fog. "Starboard your helm and come in slowly!" "Right-o! Half a minute!" Alan re- plied reassuringly. "Like hell!" Mr. Barcus muttered in | his throat as he jumped down into the , engine pit and bent over the fiy-wheel. ! Leaping on the forward thwart and balancing himself perilously near the guawale, Alan strained his vision | vainly against the opacity of the fog. | "Can't make out anything he grumbled, looking back. "Start her | up--but slow's the. word--and 'ware reef!" { "Nothing doing," Barcus retorted i curtly. "The motto is now 'Full epeed astern!' ag you must know." "0 come! ' We can't leave a woman out there--in a fix like that! "Can't we? You watch!" Barcus grunted malevolently, rocking the! heayy flywheel with all his might; for the motor had turned suddenly stub- born, + "Alan!" Rose pleaded, laying a hand upon his sleeve. "Think what it means! I know it soinds heartless of me---and it's my own 'sistér. But you know how mad she fs--wild with ha: tred and jealousy. If you take her into this boat, it's your life or bers!" "It we leave Ber out there" Alan retorted, shaking bis arm impatiently free, "it's her life op our heads!" At this juncture the motor took charge of the argument, ending it in summary fashion. With a smart ex: plosion in the eylinder, it started up unexpectedly, at one and the same | time almost dislocating the arm of | Mr. Barcus and precipitating Alan overboard. It was not given him to know what wae happening until he found himself? in the water; he struggled to the eur face just in time to see the bows of the lifeboat back away and vanish into the mist, | The Island. Not more than twenty seconds could have elapsed before Barcus recoverad from the shock of the motor's treach- | ery sufficiently to reverse the 'wheel, throttle down the carburetor and jump out of the engine-pit. But in that small space of time the lifeboat and Alan Law had parted com- pany as definitely as though one of them had been levitated bodily to the far side of the éarth. It .could not have been more than a minute after thé accident before Barcus was guiding the boat over what, going on his sense of location and judgment of distance, he could have sworn was the precise spot where Alan had disappeared, but with. out discovering a sign of him. And for the mext twenty minutes he divided his attention between at- tempts to soothe and reassure the half-distracted girl and efforts to educe a reply from Alan by stentorian bailing with: as. little success in the one as in the other. . "Alan!" 'he, shrieked at the top of his lungs. "Alan! Give a ball to tell CHAPTER XVI, hen que in another "yolee--in the voice Judith Trine, clear, musical, effer vescent with sardonic Bumor: i "Be at peace, little one--bleat no | us--and safe * consternation Barcus Sobght the countenanes of Ross. Her | blank with There's nothing to go by---except the bare possibility that the 'reef she spoke of may be Norton's. It doesn't seem possible, but we may have made that much southing. In that case | we're about three miles off the main- land, somewhere in. the neighborhood of Kgtama island, a little, rocky, deso- late bump of earth, inhabited mainly by fishermen." The girl wrung her hands. "But how could Judith get there--and with her men--and ammunition?" "Don't ask' me. Going on my expe- rience with the lady, I'd be willing to bet that she was picked up by the steamer that ran ue down, and pro- ceeded to make a prize of {t--or try to. One thing's certain--she must have found or stolen a boat from somebody; they couldnt have made Norton's reef by swimming--it's too Yanked Him Off to His Cell, far. That's the answer; they were picked up, stole a boat, and piled it up on the reef." "And there's no hope--!" "Only of the fog relenting. If 'we could ;, make the mainland and get help " His accents died away into a discon: solate silence that was unbroken for upwards of an hour, So slowly the current bore the life ! boat' toward the beach and so still | the tide that Barcus never appreciated they were within touch of any land until the bows grounded with a elight jar and a grating sound. With a ¢ry of incredulity he leaped ! to his feet-- "Land, by all that's lucky !"--and stooping, lent a hand to the girl, aiding her to rise. Hardly had Rose had time to gom- prehend what had happened, when Barcus was over the eide and wres- tling with the bows, dragging the boat farther upon the shoals. She was, however, more than one man could manage; and when her stem had bitten a littlé more deeply into the sands, Barcus gave over the attempt and, lifting Rose down, get her on dry land, then climbed back into the vessel, rummaged out her anchor and cable, and carried them ashore, planting the former well up towards | the foot of the cliff. And as he rose from this last labor { he was half blinded by the glare of the westering sun as it broke through the fog. In less than five minutes the miracu- lous commonplace was an acom- plished fact; the wind had rolled the foi back like a scroll and sent it spin- ning far out to sea, while the shore on which the two had landed was deluged with' sunlight, bright and beautifully warm. He showed a thoughtful and consid. erate countenance to the girl. "You're about all in?" She nodded confirmation of this, which was no more than simple truth. "Where are we?" she added. He made her party to his own per plexity. "You're not able to travel," he pur sued. - "Do you mind being left alone while I take a turn up the beach and have a look round? We can't be far from some sort of civilization; ever if it's an island there are no desert isles along this coast. I'll find some- thing soon enough, no fear." By tacit consent both avoided men tion of Alan, but each knew what | thought was uppermost in the other's ! mind. "There's' a niche amoung the rocks up here," Barcus indicated, "almost a cave. Youll be warm and dry enough, and secure from observation overhead. Maybe yi even snatch a few winks of "ae She rd that suggestion with 'a weary smile; no sleep for her until : sheer exhaustion overpowered har, of she knew of Alan's fate, 'And so, reiterating his promise to | be gone no longer than might be needtul, he lert her there, A. % Ry CHAPTER XVII, her she Hngored upon the sands, the 'mouth of the shelter he had se- lected for her, staring hungrily out on the shimmering sea that, now wholly divested of its shroud, smiled up to the heavens, whose sapphire face it mirrored, as falr and sweet of seem- ing as though it had never veiled a heartless tragedy. Slowly it darkeved as the sapphire above gréw darker, blending ineen- sibly into rare ultramarine with the slow decline of the sun, by whose al- titade above the horizon the day had not more than ninéty minutes to run. And she thought drowsily that if that sun sank without her learning that her lover lived, it would not rise again upon a world tenanted by Rose Trine. . It was not true, she told herself, that people never die of broken hearts, She knew that, were he taken from her, she could no longer live. . . . And sleep overwhelmed her sud: debly, like a great, dark cloud , . . But its dominion over her faculties was not of long duration. Slowly, heavily, mutinously, she was rescued if | trom its nirvana--came to her senses with ay effect of one who emerges from some vast place of blackness and terror, to find Barcus kneeling over and gingerly but persistently shaking her by the shoulder. And then she sat up with a cry of mystified compassion; for in the brie! cus had most upguestionably been se- verely used. He had acquired a long cut over one eye, but shallow, upon which blood had dried, together with a bruised and swollen cheek that was badly scratched to boot. And what simple articles of clothing remained to him, After his strenuous experiencas of the last forty-eight hours, had been re- duced to even greater simplicity; his shirt, for example, now lacked a sleeve that had been altogether torn away at the shoulder. "No!" he told her, as soon as he saw her wits "vere awake once more-- "don't waste time pitying me. I'm all right--and so is Alan! That's the main thing for you to understand; he's still alive and sound---" "But. where ig he? Take me to him!" she demanded, rising with a movement of such grace and vigor that it seemed hard to believe she had ever known an instant's weariness. "That's the rub," Barcus confessed, squatting on the sands and knuckling his hair. "I dassent take you to him. Judith might object, Besides, you can sea for yourself it {sn't safe to mingle with the: inhabitants. of this tight little island--atid, you. can't. get to | 'where Alan te Sithoyt mingling con- | siderably... Sit down, and I'll tell you all about it, and we'll try to figure out? what's ;best to be done. Mavbe we can manage a rescue under cover of night." And. when the girl had settled her self bepide him he* launched into a detailed report, "It's Katama island, all right," he announced, "but a change has come over the place since 1 visited it some years ago. Then it was a community | of simple-hearted villagers and fisher- men; now, unless all signs fail, it's a den of smugglers. I noticed ® num- ber of Chinese about; and that, taken in connection with the fact that, when I ventured to introduce myseif to the village ginmill and aek a few inno- cent questions, the entire population, tga child, landed on me like a thon sand brick--the two clrcumstances made me think we'd stumbled on a settlement of earnest workers at the gentle art of helping poor Chinamen evade the exclusion laws." With a wry smile, he pursued: "As forme, I landed out back of the joint, on the nape of my neck, and took the count, surrounded by a lot of unsym- pathetic boxes and barrels that had seen better days. | And when I came to and started to erawl unostentatiously away, I was just in time to witness the landing of your amiable sister, that sang of cutthroate she keeps on the pay roll, and Alan in company with as choice a crew of scoundrels as you'd care to see. 1 gathered from a few words that leaked out of the back door of the barroom, that it was as }had | thought--Judith bad stolen a boat from the ship that picked her up, and rammed it on Nerton's reef; and after she gathered Alan in the schooner of these smugglers happened along, and she hailed it and struck a bargain with the captain and 'signed co-partnership articles, or something Ike that. Any- way, her lot and the islanders were Soon as thick as thieves, and tanking up, so sociably that I actually got a chance to whisper a word to-Alan and tell him you were all right, and that time that he had been absent--it had | not been more than an hour--Mr, Bar. | 1 | In & twinkling. and bad his face ground tally into the sand e his hands Sr made fast with stout rope behind bis back: And when he rose, it was fo find, as he had anticipated, that Rose's resistance had been as futile 48 his own; she, too, was captive, her hands bound like his, the huge and un- clean paw of one of Judith's crew cru- elly clamped upon her shoulders. They were granted time to exchange no more than one despairing glance when a curt laugh fairly chilled the blood In Mr. Barcue, and he swung sharply between his two guards to 'confront Judith Trine. The woman he saw at first glance, was in one of her most dangerous moods--if, Barcus mentally qualified, there was a pin to choose between her moods. But now, béyond dispute, sho exhibited a countenance new in his experience with her, and one well cal culated to appall. Her face was bloodless, even. de her lips were white with the curb she put upon her passion, Her eyes were lurid with the glare of rage approaching mania. Her hands trembled, her lips quivered, all her actions wére abrupt with nervousness. ; He was by 'no means poor-apirited, but he shrank openly from the look she gave him, and was relieved when the, with a sneer, passed him by and rlanted herself squarely beforo her sister. "Well?" ghe demanded brusquely, 'How much longer do you think I'm going to tolerate your interference you poor liitle fool! How many more leans will you require before realiz- ing that I mean to have my way, and that you'll cross me only to. suffer for it?" The courage of the other girl won the unstinted admiration of Mr. Bar| cus. Far from cringing, she seemed fo find fresh heart in her sister's chal: lenge. Her head was high, her glance level with illimitable contempt as she replied: . "80 you've tried again?" she in- quired obliquely, with a tone of pity. "You've offered him your love yet an- other time, have you?" "Silence!" Judith cried in fury. "Oaly to learn once more that he would rather death than you?" Rose ted, unflinching. "And so you e to take your spite out on me, co you? You pitiful thing! Do you think -T mind-yknowing ss 1 do now that he could never hold you in any- thing but compassion and contempt?" For an instant there was silence; by the ecorn of her sister the heat. of Judith's fury had been transformed into a cold and malignant rage. Sho controlled herself and her voice mar: velously. "You will'see," ¢he sald in éven and frigid fcoents. And tie light of her rrania leaped and leaped again th her eyes like a living flame. "I have pre- ired a way to make yof understand What opposition to me moans i She waved a hand toward the nearer point of rocks. "Take them along" she commanded, The understanding between her and her men was apparently complete; for these last, without hesitation or fur ther instructions, marched Rose and Darcus down to the end of the spit aad on, into the water. It was nearly knee-deep before Bar. cue was halted with a savage jerk, backed up to a rock, forced despite his renzied resistance to sit down in the water, and swiftly, with half a dozen | H Already the Waters Had Risen Over) an inch, deft hitches of rope and a stanch Knot, made fast in that position--sub- nierged to his chest. This accomplished, thé men turned attention to Rose, lashing her iu simi. lar wise at Barcus' side. Standing just above the waterline, with every sign of complete calm and sanity other than that ominous fiicker- ing in her eyes, Judith superintended the business till its conclusion, then waved the. men away. vainly with his bonds. As for Rose, she wasted no strength in struggling-- perhaps had none to waste. When he looked her way he saw her exquisite profilp unmarred by any line of fear or doubt, sharply relieved against the darkness of the rising flood. Her level gaze without a tremor travered the shining flood to, its far horizon, He 'noted that already 'the Waters had risen more than an inch. y Humbled even in his terror by that radiant calm that dwelt upen her, he ventured diffidently: Trine--" She turned her bead and found. the heart to smile. "Rose," she corrected gently, "I'm sorry," he said---which was not at all what he had meagt to say, "I've done my best. I suppose it's wrong} to give up--but they've made it too much for me, this time," "I know," she sald gently. "You"--he stammered---"you're not afraid? "There is nothing to fear," she said, "but death, "Then," he said more bravely, after a time--the water now was near his chin--"good-by-=good luck!" "Not yet, dear Sriend," she returned, "not yet." But the sun wae perilously close upon the rim of the world. But a little time, and it would be night, He closed his eyes to shut out the vision of its slow, implacable descent. The water was now almost level with 'his lips; it seemed strange that a They Fought Like 'Madmen | his. throat could , be #0 dry, parched , . . He opened his eyes, shuddering. "It's good-by now," he faltered, "Not, yet!" her voloe rang beside him, vibrant. "Look--up there--along the cligr!™ He lifted his gaze . . . Two men were running along the clif---and the man in the lead was Alan. But his lead was very scant, and the man who pursued was one of Judith's, and stuck the trail like a blood-hound fresh from the leash. And now the water was 'at his lips: Barcus could no more speak without strangling. Of a sudden he groaned in his heart; though there was no passable way down the cliff, still the sight of his friend alive and unharmed had brought with it a thrill of hope: now that hope died as he saw Alan stumble ad go to his knees. Before he could vise the other was upon him, with the fury of a wolf seek: "ing the throat of a stag. For an instant they fought like mad men; then, in & trice, the sky Ine of the cliff was empty; one or the other had tripped and fallen over the brink, avd falling had retained hold of his enemy and carried him down as well. By no chance, Barcus told himself, could either escape uninjured. Yet, to his amazement, he saw one man break from the other's embrace and rise. And he who lay still, a erumpled, inhuman heap upon the sands, was Judith"s man. With a violent effort Barcus lifted his mouth above water and shrieked: "Alan! Alan! Help! Heve--at the end of the point--in the water--help!" A precious minute was lost before Alan discovered their two 'heads, so barely above that swiftly rising flood. Then he ran toward them as he had never run before, and as he came 80 whipped out a jack-knife and freed its blad 4 And as this red rim of the sun by the waves. 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