Picture-Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY 19 iall, summon Mr. Durant or some re;nsible person. Answer — at once !" "ranees waited a moment more, obiiately. She took I another reassuring ince at the peaceful sea and shore 1 at the men basking on the deck. Am refusing to answer you under lection of responsible person," she sig|ed rapidly. Who?" Mr. Pine " She started to spell name, but stopped in confusion. The one who has landed?" The recaught her up at once. >he did not answer. Appreciate now you are about gol," continued Lieutenant Sommers. |ope find you in time. Warn again d position at once. Where are you?" 4j;Shall not " the girl was return r, when suddenly a single, far-off shot pg out, to be followed almost immei] tely by a volley from the shore. The utry by the boat upon the beach fired signal the alarm. 'Frances, startled by the sound, sudfply arose from the instrument, pressty; her hands to her beating heart. She iched the forward window of the '•)in as the whole yacht began to bristle ch arms. With quick, crisp orders, Adrian and mates were lining up the men. The >i :nds tumbled into the lifeboat as it ashed into the water. Captain Adrian d Warner, the second mate, jumped 1 iter them. A dozen oars caught the iter, and the boat leaped toward the Dre. (The shots in the woods rang out ain ; from single, separate disiarges they grew into volleys. Then 3ey scattered, but only to gather again I'.o the .rattle of longer volleys. -Pinckney's sentry, who, after giving k alarm, had dashed inland, suddenly 'appeared on the run, and, without 'using, jumped into the water and beti to swim toward the hurrying boat, j his heels appeared two wild, halflid natives, who stopped on the shore d discharged their carbines at the 'immer. They missed. As they setid themselves to fire again, Adrian's nen wounded one from the boat; and ichols, the Irvessa's first mate, in arge of the stewards and wipers he A gathered at the yacht's bow, began ing at the other over the heads of the ipper's men. Both fled back into the oods, wounded ; but the firing inland ttled the louder. r "Frances!" Mr. Durant, in his dressing gown, shaking and half frantic, found his daughter at last. '*Oh, father ! Etherington — he went ashore with nine men this morning to look at those mines, and he's being attacked ! Oh, they're shooting them ! Hear them, father ! But Adrian and Warner have gone with the rest — twenty more, father!" "I see — I see !" The old man grasped the situation. "But you, my dear — oh, my girl ! Nichols !" He called to the first mate. "Are we safe here?" "There must be a hundred men there in the woods, sir." The mate saluted respectfully as he stood by, with a smoking rifle in his hand. "I'm afraid, sir, our thirty — such as they are — mayn't be no match for them. Adrian's taken all but those !" He pointed to his handful of stewards and wipers. "But they're enough, and we're safe enough, sir — I think. They'd hardly be mad enough to try to attack us in the boats, though they may try to pot us from the woods." "They're trying it now, I think, Nichols." Frances, white-faced but strangely collected and cool, found herself pointing at a series of black dots which suddenly appeared in the whitepainted wood behind them to the right. The smooth, steel bullets from the carbines of the natives had passed almost noiselessly through the painted boards. "Go below — below, Frances !" Her father caught her and hurried her toward the companionway. "No, father, no!" She struggled against him. "I must stay here J" she cried frantically. "Here !" echoed the old man, shuddering in his fear for her, as Adrian's men discharged a volley from the boat into the trees before they landed. They had picked up the swimming sentry. Frances saw, as she got free from her father, that the second boat had reached the sandspit beside the first, and that the men were discharging their rifles feverishly into the brush, as they swarmed upon the sand and threw themselves down. Then Adrian rallied them, and, firing a last volley, they charged out of sight under the trees. The firing became louder, awakening ponderous echoes. The Bagol men were gathering in a wider circle; but Pinckney and his guard were still holding them off. A shot from the shore hummed by, not a foot from Frances' head, and left its black dot in the woodwork behind Mr. Durant, between him and his daughter. A second shot followed, and dotted beside the other. Nichols had raised his rifle, and was returning the fire. But the brown men, who had come back to watch the beach after the sailors had passed, were lying hidden and safe. And still their shots sang by. "Go below, child!" Mr. Durant had clasped his daughter again. "Below !" "No, father — no !" She resisted him more frantically, trembling as the firing inland crackled out again. "Listen — they'll all be killed ! Oh, there must be hundreds firing at them ; and they must all be killed unless — unless we — I can save them, father ! I can save them !" "You, child!" "Yes, by the wireless ! I was talking with the San Juan — our gunboat — just a minute ago. Oh, if I had only told him where we are, and he were coming now !" "The wireless?" Her father was calling after her, but ,she had broken away, and soon the coils spat out their leaping blue spark. "San Juan" called Frances quickly. "Irvessa is in " "Oh, where are we, Nichols — what part of Bagol, I mean?" she cried to the mate. "What bay is this?" "Talagutan Bay, North Bagol !" she sent rapidly, when the information was supplied. "We are being attacked by "Oh — oh !" she caught herself up, appreciating that while she had been sending the cruiser had been calling her. "Call!" she signaled feverishly. "Irvessa in Talagutan Bay, North Bagol, attacked. Come at once. Party ten landed six this morning, attacked half mile inland, probably returning. Twenty men landed to help them, attacked by large force. Heavy firing. Come " "Coming!" was the instantaneous response. "Full speed ! Thought you in east bay ; was making for you there. Am now within twelve miles about east point Talagutan Bay. Reach and relieve you surely within three-quarter hour !" "He's coming ! Oh, father !" she cried triumphantly. Another bullet from the shore splintered the port of the wireless cabin.