THE SEA-HAWK ] n^SSaS&rwtm^. Part Two By Rafael Sabatini. _ i (Continued From Yesterday.) "My word," he answered her in a ringing voice. "lour He,” she amended. ' . >o you suppose,” said he, "that 1 could not support my word by proofs if called upon to do so.” • Proofs?" She stared at him, wide eyed a moment. Then he lip curled. ” Vnd that no doubt was the reason of your flight when you heard that tit" queen's pursuivants were coming in response to the public voice to call you to account " lie stood at gaze a moment, utterly dumbfounded. “My flight?” he said. ■ What fable's that?” ■ You will tell me next that you d d not flee. That that Is another false charge against you?” ' So,” he said slowly, "it w»s be lt* ved I fled!” ,\nd then light hurst upon him, to dazzle and stun him. It was so in ivltahly what must have been be lieved. and yet it had never crossed ills mind. Oh the damnable simplic ity of it! At another time his dis appearance must have provoked com ment and investigation, perhaps. But, happening when it did, the answer to it came promptly and convincingly, and no man troubled to question fur ther. Thus was Lionel’s task made doubly easy, thus was his own guilt made doubly sure In the eyes of all. IPs head sank upon his breast. What bad he done? Could he still blame Posamund for having been convinced by so overwhelming a piece of evi dence? Could he still blame her if she bad burned unopened the letter which lie httd aent her by the hand of Pitt? What else Indeed could any suppose, but that he had fled? And that being so, clearly such a flight must brand him Irrefutably for the murderer he was alleged to he. How could he blame her If she had ultimately been convinced by the only reasonable assumption possible? A sudden sense of ths wrong he had done rose now like a tide about him. “My God!” he groaned, like a man in pain. "My God!” He looked at her, and then avert ed his glance again, unable now to endure the haggard, strained yet fear less gaze of those brave eyes of hers. "What else, indeed, could you be lieve?” he muttered brokenly, thus giving some utterance to what was passing through his mind. "Naught else but the whole vile truth," she answered fiercely, and ♦ hereby stung him anew, whipped him out of his sudden weakening back to ins mood of resentment and vindic tiveness. .She had shown herself, he thought In that moment of reviving anger, too ready to believe what told against him. “The truth?” he echoed, and eyed her boldly now. “Do you know the truth when you see it? We shall dis cover. For by Gotl’a light you shall have the truth laid stark before you now, and you shall find It hideous beyond all your hideous Imaginings.”! There was something so compelling - - I now In his tone and manner that it drove her to realize that some revela tion was Impending. She was con scious of a faint excitement, a re flection perhaps of the wild excite ment that was astir In him. "Your brother,” lie began, "met his death at the hands of a false weak ling whom I loved, towards whom 1 had a sacred duty. Straight from the deed he fled to me for shelter. A wound he had taken lit the struggle left that trail of blood to mark the way he had come." He paused, and his tone became gentler. It assumed the level note of one who reasons Im passively. "Was it not an odd thing, now, that none should ever have paused to seek with rertainty whence that blood proceeded, and to con sider that I bore no wound in those days? Master Balne knew It, for I submitted my body to his examination and a document was drawn up and duly attested which should have sent the queen's pursuivants back to Lon don with drooping tails had I been at Penarrow to receive them.” Faintly through her mind stirred the memory that Master Balne had urged the existence of some such document, that In fact he had gone so far as to have made oath of this very circumstance now urged by Sir Oliver; and she remembered that the matter had been brushed aside as an invention of the justice's to answer the charge of laxity in the perform ance of his duty, particularly as the only co-witness he could cite was Sir Andrew Flack, the parson, since de ceased. Sir Oliver’s voice drew her attention from that memory. "But let that be," he was saying. “Let us come back to the story itself. I gave the craven weakling shelter. Thereby 1 drew down suspicion upon myself, and since I could not clear myself save by denouncing him, I kept silent. That suspicion grew to certainty when the woman to whom I was betrothed, recking nothing of my oaths, freely believing the very worst of me, made an end of our be trothal and thereby branded me a murderer and a liar In the eyes of all. Indignation swelled against me. The queen’s pursuivants were on their way to do what the justices of Truro refused to do. "So far I have given you facts. Now I give you surmise—my own conclu sions—but surmise that strikes, as you shall judge, the very bull’s-eye of truth. That dastard to whom I had given sanctuary, to whom 1 had served as a cloak, measured my na ture by his own and feared that 1 must prove unequal to the fresh bur den to he cast upon me. He feared lest under the strain of it I should speak out, advance my proofs, and so destroy him. There was the mat ter of that wound, and there was something still more unanswerable he feared I might have urged. There was a certain woman—a wanton, up at Malpas—who could have been made to speak, who could have revealed a rivalry concerning her betwixt the slayer and your brother. For the affair In which Peter Oodolphin met his death was a pitifully, shamefullv sordid one at bottom.” For the first time she interrupt'd him. fiercely. "Ho you malign the dead?” "Patience, mistreaa,'’ he command ed. "1 malign none. I speak the truth of a dead man that the truth may be known of two living ones. Hear me out, then! I have waited long and survived a de.-»l that I might tell you this. "That craven, then, conceived that I might become a danger to him; so he decided to remove me. He con trived to have me kidnaped one night and put aboard a vessel to be carried to Barbary and sold there as a slave. That Is the truth of mv disappearance. And the slayer, whom L had befriended and sheltered at my own bitter cost, profited yet further by my removal. Ood knows whether the prospect of such profit was a further temptation to him. In time he came to succeed me in my poa sessions, and at last to succeed me even In the affections of the faithless woman who ones had been my affianced wife,” At last she started from the frozen patience In which she had listened hitherto. "Do you say that . . . that Lionel . . .?” she was beginning in a voice choked by Indignation. And then Lionel spoke at last straightening himself Into a stiffly upright attitude. “He lies!” he cried. "He lies, Rosa mund! Do not heed him.” A wave- of color suffused the swarthy face of Sakr-el-Bahr. A mo ment his eyes followed her as she moved away a ’step or two, then they turned their blazing light of anger upon Lionel. He strode silently across to him, his mien so menacing that Llopel shrank back In fresh terror. Sakr-el-Bahr caught his brother’s wrist In a grip that was as that of a steel manacle. "We’ll have the truth this night If we have to tear it from you with red-hot pincers,” he said between his teeth. He dragged him forward to the mid die of the terrace and held him there before Rosamund, forcing him down upon his knees Into a cowering atti tude by the violence of that grip upon his wrist. ) "Do you know aught nf the inge nuity of Moorish torture?" he naked him. “You may have heard of the rack and the wheel ami the thumb screw at home. They are instruments of voluptuous delight compared with the contrivances of Barbary to loosen stubborn tongues.” White and tense, her hands clenched, Rosamund seemed to stiffen before him. "You coward! You cur! You craven renegade dog!" she branded him. Oliver released his brother's wrist and heat his hands together. Without heeding Rosamund he looked down Lionel, who cowered shuddering at his feet. “What do you ssv to a match be tween your fingers'.' Or do you think a pair of bracelets of living fire would answer better, to begin with'.’" "Look up, dog," ho bade him, "Con sider mo that man, anil see if you know him again. Look at him, I say!" And Lionel looked, yet since clearly he did so without recognition his brother explained: "His name among Christians was Jasper Leigh. He was the skipper you bribed to carry me into Barbary. lie was taken in his own toils when his ship was sunk by Spaniards. Later he fell Into my power, and because I forbore from hanging him he is today my faithful follower. I should bid him tell you what he knows," he continued, turn ing to Rosamund, "if I thought you would believe hla tale. But since 1 am assured you would not, 1 will take other means.” lie swung round to Jasper again. "Bid All heat me a pair of steel manacles In a brazier and bold them In readiness against tny need of them." And he waved his hand. Jasper bowed and vanished. "The bracelet* shall coax confes slon from your own lips, my brother.” "I have naught to confess," pro tested IJonel. "You may force lies from me with your ruffianly tortures." Oliver smiled. “Not a doubt but that lies will flow from you more readily than truth. Hut we shall have truth, too, In the end, never doubt it." He was mocking, and there was n subtle purpose underlying his mock ery. "And you shell tell a full story.* he continued, "In all Its details, so that Mistress Rosamund’s last doubt shall vanish. You shall tell her how you lay in wait for him that evening In nodolphln park; how you took him unawares, and . . (To Bo Continued Tomorrow.) Ain’t It a Grand and Glorious Feeling By Briggs WHerJ. eue.«. i\NCC You lutRe * L'TTH. TomOOY YoU'vjS U/AMTtO SvioRT hair 8UT MOTHeR JU$T COTCD LomG CURLS - And That mothsr Th«.ouj-5 a fit when You insist on‘'putting UP’* That lomG Wad in High School days * - AMD Yi?AB» LATER iaJMEiv You'Re MARRIED, and B0B8ED hair if. im style Too A6ah0 have That Childish impulse BuT rRiCMD HUSBamD vSAYJ »r Yao oBby THat imPuL-SE He VUit-l. Turk* You OUT . • AmD Thcm Two ybaR* later Too Take Your lire in You* HanDJ ano Get That BOB andEvprt Owe including FRi£NO HUSBAND ls Keen about it New York —Day by Day V J By O. O. McINTYRE. New York. May 22.—Dan Carey's fsinous old crutch store on the Bowery has closed. The closing marks nnother liigh spot in the Bowery up lift. t'arey’s was the haven for beg jars -,vho faked physical deformities. ^•■Stllt men’’ they were called. '’.'tey also furnished bandages that v ere tinted blood color. In the old days the front part of his place was a saloon, but with prohibition It was n sawdust coated eatery. In the hick room were crutches snd a few Invalid chairs for rent. t'arey charged 50 cents a day for crutch rental and a dollar a day for a w heel chair. Ilia largest profits, how ever, came from the beggar's profits, for he generally spent all he made over the bar. t'arey was able to buy the building in which he held forth. it la said beggars are abla to make more these days without simulating deformities. When they ask for a price of a drink they receive from BO to 75 cents, whereas in the old days Bowery liquor sold for B and 10 cents a shot. Even ths "dummy chucker” who threw fake fits to excite sympathy liaa disappeared. He finds his feigned seizures lost motion. An extended trembling hand will produce greater results for New York since prohibition knows the pang of a hangover. The tattered old hum has given way to tha rather natty seeker of temporary alms. He accosts you not ns "Hey, Jack!” but by a polite touch on the arm. He is well dressed snd shaved. He admits he has been over-j indulging in liquor. He wants to! freshen up and go back to hla job. The beggar's eyes used to relesse a freshet of woe. He hung hia head and recited unlmaglned misery. Now Tie looks you in the eye, gives you the Impression of mere temporary mis fortune and you hesitate to give htin a dime. Mora than likely you feel ashamed at the dollar. Two young girls who have been chasing the Broadway Ignis fatus— Boy, the dictionary—have wound up as hat check girls In a cheap Tenth avenue cabaret. They tre trying to earn enough money to return to their homes in the south. They discovered Brosdwny generous until the youthful bloom hsd tarnished aryl then the ask of a loan was met with a. snub. It is Broadway’s age-old attitude toward the good fellow. First sdmlratlon— then sympathy. Nearly every best selling novel in ♦ he past three years has been written in New York and the characters sre smsll town folk. In the New York atmosphere sll the village folk seem dull-minded clods. As s villager my aelf I refuse to believe we are ss flat as we are painted. In fact I believe th LOVEUT AT V THE tEAXHORE • tjTl L L. AH OVJTIMO IH THE 4 NOUNTWH6 VJOULE —1 BE dLOROOt) - , . 'b'Tl LU - VO RATHER — E>C- MEAtR, l_AKEb /T/T FOR CAMOElMC* -\ET fill EEXROOE l^> £>EAOTiroL ; [flj ) AT TH\t> TME Or THE ISST —j TEA«. AMD - • ^ JERRY ON THE JOB Drawn for The Omaha Bee by Hoban m. 1 * * * 'r0*yri*ht 19*4' ► ^_I ABIE THE AGENT •Drawn for The Omaha Bee by Hershfield \ REASON \R1.E REQUEST. Fvou KNCXaJ to me a pan/or, ^11 l monEV i cwe ; Please * ip | \XTOO?ILELU= DON'T INTEND TO > I ^ P«Y ME, AT LEAST, ' '. Stop REMiNCMNjjj Vme oe it*!' o ' r ^-7 * t -•