McClure's Magazine/Volume 55/Number 7/Jim Maitland's Adventure at Corn Reef Light

by H. C. McNeile

 

Jim Maitland's Adventure
at Corn Reef Light

The Queen Goddess of the Island Calls for Human Sacrifice

By Major H. C. McNeile
illustrations by G. W. Gage

IF you lie on the close-clipped turf that stretches between Beachy Head and Burling Gap, not too far from the edge of the white chalk cliffs, you will see below you the lighthouse. It stands out in the sea some two hundred yards from the base of the cliff, and every few seconds, with monotonous regularity, once dusk has fallen, the beam from the revolving light will shine on you and then pass on, sweeping over the gray water below. A dangerous part of the coast, that one- time haunt of smugglers, till the lighthouse made it safe. There are treacherous currents and shoals, and when a southwesterly gale has been blowing full force for some days it can be rough off Beachy Head.

But the worst is when the sea wrack comes gently drifting over the Downs and lies like a great gray blanket over the sea below. Then that sweeping light is useless, and every two or three minutes comes the sound of a maroon from the lighthouse—a sound which is answered by the mournful wailing of sirens out to sea, as vessels creep slowly through the fog. Like great monsters out of the depths they wail dismally at one another and pass unseen, their sirens growing fainter and fainter in the distance. Only the roar of the maroons from the light- house goes on unchanged, while the gray fog eddies gently by, making fantastic figures as it drifts. Implacable and silent, it seems to mock such paltry man-made efforts to fight it, and yet there are amazingly few accidents, even in that crowded shipping area.

It depends, however, for its success upon the man. Elaborate your mechanical devices as you will, introduce the most complicated automatic machinery to control the regular sweep of the light, and the monotonous explosion of the maroons, it all comes back finally to the man who lives in that tall slender building rising out of the water. A dreary life to which not many men are suited: a life where strange thoughts and fancies might come drifting into one's brain—drifting as gently and slowly as the gray wisps of fog outside. And after a while some might remain, even though outside the fog has gone and the water shines blue again in the sunlight. It is that way that danger lies. In the crowded water- ways, where inspectors are many and inspections numerous, the risk is small.

BUT there are others where from month's end to month's end a man will see no soul save the fellow who lives with him; where, save for the occasional visit of a boat with supplies, there is nothing to break the deadly monotony. Sometimes even there is no other fellow: the man is alone. And strange things may happen if then those drifting thoughts and fancies come and take root. When faces float past pressing for a moment against the glass, and then are gone; when voices unheard by the other man come clearly out of the night: when strange shapes materialize—there is danger ahead.

Which is by way of being a preamble to one of the strangest of the adventures which came to Jim Maitland and me, during the years we wandered together. It was in the spring after the fight at Bull Mine Creek, and the memory of Pete Cornish had well-nigh faded from our minds. We were drifting homeward, though neither of us admitted it in so many words, but we were drifting in our own way. Not for Jim the conventional P. and O.; his taste, as always, was for the small coasting boat which called at unknown islands and dealt in strange cargoes. One went as far as one liked in her, and then stopped and waited for something else. Which takes time, but has its advantages undreamed of by the occupants of the millionaire suites in big liners.

And so it happened that one day in the spring following our efforts at finding gold we came back to Tampico—that island where I had first met him—that island which held the grave of the husband of the only woman who mattered to Jim. We took rooms in the hotel, and almost as if the words had been spoken aloud I heard again her voice, bitter with unmeasured contempt, crying, “Oh, you cur!” I think Jim heard it, too, for suddenly he smiled at me a little bitterly.

“Is it much use going home, Dick?”

HE didn't wait for my answer, but turned away with a shrug of his shoulders and went upstairs while I strolled down the street toward the club. Nothing had changed: nothing ever will change at Tampico. Each drunken derelict who dies is replaced sooner or later by another, which can hardly be accounted as change. And as for the club, I might have left it the day before instead of three years previously.

It was unoccupied save for one man who glanced up as I came in, and then continued reading the letter he held in his hand. Every now and then he gave a little frown, and I looked at him covertly as I ordered a drink. There was that nameless something about him which marked him instantly as one of those thousands of Britishers who spend their lives in God-forsaken quarters of the globe, carrying on the little job of Empire.

The native waiter brought me my drink, and with a three-month-old illustrated paper in my hand, I sat down and forgot about him. He did not seem disposed for conversation, and, to tell the truth, no more was I. The clubhouse at Tampico was the starting point of many memories and I was feeling lazy. Chiefly they centered around Jim, and it wasn't until I heard his voice behind me cheerfully greeting the stranger that I realized I was holding the paper upside down.

Illustration: Confronting us was David Temple with an iron bar raised menacingly in his hand—but, appalled, we stared for a moment at the great bell swinging to and fro

“Why, it's MacGregor!” I heard him say. “The last time I saw you was in Singapore. How are you, my dear fellow?”

“Jim Maitland, by all that's wonderful!” The stranger got up and seized Jim's hand, and just then Jim caught sight of me.

“Come over here, Dick!” he cried. “This is Jack MacGregor—and a partially demented government pays him a salary for cruising up and down outlandish waters and seeing that no one has walked off with a lighthouse or two. If they only knew what he did with his salary when he gets ashore, they'd halve it in the interests of public morals.”

“SALARY,” snorted MacGregor. “Call my beggarly pittance a salary! And now the blighters have put a survey job on my shoulders as well. Think I haven't enough work to do, I suppose.”

“But what brings you here, Jock?” asked Jim. “Tampico is a bit out of your beaten track, isn't it?”

MacGregor nodded abruptly and the frown appeared once more.

“The supply boat for the lighthouse at Corn Reef goes from here,” he said. “It starts tomorrow and I'm going with it.”

“Visit of inspection?” said Jim.

“Yes and no,” returned the other. “In all probability I shall stay there for a week or so.”

Jim raised his eyebrows.

“Since when has the great Pooh Bah stayed at particular lighthouses?” he inquired. “I thought you merely looked in to see that the occupant hadn't been frying sausages on the lamps, and then passed gracefully on.”

Jock MacGregor grinned, and then grew serious again.

“That's why I said yes and no. This isn't an ordinary inspection.” He hesitated a moment and then leaned forward in his chair. “Care to hear the story, Jim?”

“Get it right off your chest, Jock,” said Jim, beckoning the waiter for drinks.

“Well, if it won't bore you I will,” began MacGregor. “Only I'll have to go back a bit. When we last met, I had nothing to do with this area at all. Bill Lambert had it, and mine was farther north. I don't know if you ever met Bill, but he took to seeing things that weren't there, from the usual! cause, and has recently gone on permanent sick leave. They said they'd send a successor, as they always do say, but so far there's been no sign of him. And until his arrival Mr. MacGregor was to carry on with both areas—and no increase of pay. Bless their hearts! However, I didn't mind, and, to do them justice, under normal circumstances it would have made no odds to me. If you've twice the area to cover, you do half the number of inspections, and it comes to the same thing in the end. It's just a matter of form and routine as you can guess—under normal circumstances.”

He emphasized the last three words, and Jim glanced at him.

“One gathers that Corn Reef is not quite normal,” he remarked.

“I'M coming to that,” said MacGregor, putting down his glass. “I don't know whether you know the part or not—personally, I only know it from the map. Corn Reef sticks out from a smallish island called Taba Island, which I believe is inhabited by a few natives. It stretches about halfway across a deep-water channel toward the next of the group, which is uninhabited. Beyond that again come other small islands and reefs, and in fact the only method of navigating the belt is through the other half of the deep-water channel I have told you about—one half of which is blocked by Corn Reef.

“The lighthouse stands on the end of the reef—midway across the channel. At low water it can be reached from the island on foot: at high water the reef is covered. So much for the locality: now for the personal details. Six months ago, as I said, I took over from Bill Lambert. It was an informal sort of taking over, as he had got delirium tremens pretty badly, and I got no information out of him. But it didn't worry me much, for I'd no idea then that there was anything peculiar in his area. And it wasn't till a month ago, when I received a communication from the keeper at Corn Reef Lighthouse, that I began to look into things. His name is David Temple, and the communication was brief and to the point. It stated that his assistant had fallen into the sea and been drowned, while attending to the bell, and could another be sent!”

“Bell!” repeated Jim. “I don't quite follow.”

“Sorry,” said MacGregor. “I forgot that point. Apparently, at certain times you get a thick belt of fog across the reef and the channel and stretching right along the belt of islands. Probably it's some form of heavy ground mist. When that comes down they have as a warning for ships a huge bell which is tolled mechanically. It is built out on a sort of platform below the level of the light, and as far as I can make out from the plans it seems a pretty antiquated sort of arrangement. However, there it is, and as long as it functions you won't get them to spend any money in having it replaced by anything more up-to-date:

“Well, when I got Temple's letter, I began looking up the files. And to my amazement I found that about three months before Bill Lambert had gone, a precisely similar letter had reached him. At first I thought that the second was merely a reminder, and that Bill had forgotten all about it. So I made inquiries, only to discover the somewhat sinister fact that it was far from a reminder. Bill had sent a man. I was therefore confronted with the situation that within some nine months two men had fallen into the sea and been drowned, while attending to the bell at Corn Reef Lighthouse. Which seemed to show that there was something radically wrong with the bell arrangements generally: something”—MacGregor paused—“something, Jim, which I utterly failed to get at from the plans. I'm not denying that the whole idea is antiquated, but, granting that the plans and sections are correct, it is perfectly safe. And I could see no reason whatever—short of a desire to commit suicide—why two men should fall into the sea.”

“AND even granting that, why of necessity they should be drowned?” said Jim quietly.

MacGregor shrugged his shoulders.

“The place is alive with sharks, of course,” he remarked. “But I've not quite finished yet. Another unpleasant fact was brought to my notice shortly after I received this letter from Temple. I ran into the skipper of some craft or other in the club at Singapore and he was looking for Bill Lambert's blood. And when he heard I was doing Bill's job he turned his wrath on me. And his accusation amounted to this: that on the morning of February 24th he was on the bridge of his ship nosing her gently through a thick mist. Suddenly there came a bellow from the lookout man, and to his horror he saw looming out of the mist on the starboard side—Corn Reef Lighthouse.

“'My God, man!' he said to me. 'I could have spat an orange pip at it—and hit it: I could almost have touched it with my hand. In thirty years I've never had such an escape. Another foot—another six inches—and we'd have been on that reef.'

“'But wasn't the bell ringing?' I demanded.

“'Not a sound,' he roared. 'Not a sound! You can hear that bell for fifteen miles—and there wasn't a sound. Only as I passed by—damn it, why the platform on which the bell is built nearly grazed my wireless—I looked up. Man! I tell you the bell was ringing right enough—I could see it through the fog—but no sound came. Only above the beat of the engine, I thought I heard a steady thud, thud, thud, in time with the beat of the bell. But maybe it was my imagination.'”

Jock MacGregor paused and drained his drink.

“So that is the rather peculiar situation I'm up against.”

“And how do you propose to deal with it?” asked Jim.

“TEMPLE asked for an assistant,” said MacGregor briefly, “and he's going to have one. He's going to have me.” He lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “There's something wrong, Jim,” he continued, after a moment, “something very wrong out there. That merchant skipper was as hard-headed a customer as you could meet, and if he saw that bell moving—it was moving! Then why was there no sound? And those two men drowned in nine months! I guess I'm not going to send a third till I've had a look around myself. This man, David Temple, doesn't know me—hasn't ever seen me, so there won't be any difficulty in passing myself off as his new assistant.”

Jim was looking thoughtfully out of the window.

“How long has Temple been there?” he said at length.

“Years, as far as I can make out,” answered MacGregor. “There was one paper in the file—the usual routine paper with regard to an exchange—dated five years ago. He'd refused, or rather had requested to be allowed to stay on. And since I gather there is no vast rush for Corn Reef, I suppose Bill Lambert was only too glad to let him.” He paused and looked at Jim.

Jim shook his head.

“Five years is a long time, Jock,” he said gravely. “A very long time. It's far too long a time for a man to spend in a place like that.”

“You think I may find Temple a bit queer?” said MacGregor slowly.

Jim shrugged his shoulders.

“Jock,” he said, “I've got a proposal to make to you. Temple doesn't know you and he doesn't know me. You go as his assistant, as you have already decided: I'll go as your new boss who has just taken Lambert's place. Dick can come as a pal of mine. If everything seems all right—well, we shall all have had a very pleasant little trip, and Temple will be none the worse. If, on the other hand, things are not all right—three heads are better than one, Jock.”

“Do you mean it, Jim?” said MacGregor. “Will you both come?”

“I do,” answered Jim. “And as for Dick——”

“Count me in,” I said at once.

“Then I accept your suggestion with the greatest pleasure,” said MacGregor. “And, to tell you the strict truth, I might add with the greatest relief.”

At dawn the next morning we started in the supply boat, and of the run to Taba Island I shall say nothing The first part of it was uninteresting, and the last few miles were so inconceivably beautiful as to defy description. In front of us stretched the belt of islands, with the lighthouse standing up, dim and clear-cut, straight ahead. On our left lay Taba Island, a riot of tropical vegetation and glorious flowers which reached right down to the water's edge, broken here and there by stretches of golden sand almost dazzling in its brightness.

Between the lighthouse and the island was a line of surf marking Corn Reef; while to the right of the light- house lay the deep-water channel of unbroken blue. And as we got nearer we could see the strange structure which marked the position of the bell. It was built out from the side, and it reminded one of those medieval galleries which jut out from the walls of old castles into which the defenders used to go to pour burning oil on the gentlemen below. And this bell jutted out in just such a manner on the channel side of the lighthouse.

“Great Scott!” said Jim, who had been examining it through his field glass. “Even allowing for pictorial effect, if that fellow passed close enough to see that bell in a fog, I don't wonder he wanted somebody's blood.”

And now we were near enough to see the details with the naked eye. On a rough landing stage at the foot of the lighthouse a man was standing gazing at us fixedly through a telescope. As we came closer he shut it up and awaited us with folded arms. He was dressed in white, and as the boat made fast he might have been carved out of stone, so motionless did he stand. Then he took a step forward, and spoke in a curiously harsh voice.

“Which is my new assistant?”

He was tall and gaunt with a coarse, straggling beard, and as I looked at him I could conceive no more awful fate than being condemned to spend month after month alone with him.

It was Jim who answered, as we had arranged.

“Here is your new assistant—MacGregor,” he said, stepping ashore. “And I am your new inspector, in place of Mr. Lambert.”

“You will find everything in good order, sir,” the man said quietly, but it was Jock MacGregor he was staring at.

“How comes it that two men have been drowned. within such short time, Temple?” demanded Jim sternly. “There must have been gross carelessness somewhere.”

“IT is the bell, sir,” answered the man, still in the same quiet voice. “When the mist comes down, and presses around one's head with soft, clammy fingers, it is sometimes difficult to see.”

Jim grunted, and eyed the man narrowly.

“Then the bell must be removed,” he said, and Temple started violently.

“It is only carelessness, sir, on their parts!” he cried. “The bell has never hurt me.”

“Well, I will inspect everything,” said Jim curtly. “I shall stay here until the supply boat returns the day after tomorrow.” He looked up at the lighthouse.

I saw Temple shoot a quick suspicious glance at him, but he merely nodded and said, “Very good, sir.” Then he glanced toward Taba Island and nodded again, as if satisfied.

“There will be fog tonight, sir,” he remarked. “When the Queen of the Island is crowned in mist at this time of day there is always fog. So you will hear the bell.”

He went off to superintend the disposal of his stores, and Jim turned to MacGregor.

“What the devil is he talking about, Jock?” he muttered.

“The Queen of the Island is that hill, old man,” answered MacGregor. “I remember seeing it marked on the map.”

“He seems a queer sort of bird,” said Jim thoughtfully, and MacGregor nodded.

“You're right, Jim,” he said. “Though I'm bound to admit that at present he doesn't strike me as anything out of the way. You meet some queer, morose customers on this game, you know.”

And certainly, during the next hour or so, there seemed nothing peculiar about Temple. Jim, carefully primed by MacGregor, asked a few leading questions, but for the most part he said nothing and let the other man talk. We examined the mirrors and reflectors: we examined the lamps: but most of all we examined Temple himself. And then we came to the bell.

If it had looked big as we came toward the lighthouse, it looked enormous close at hand. Built out from the side, it was carried on a steel cantilever arm, while underneath it, about eight feet below, a narrow wooden platform jutted out over the water—a platform some eighteen inches wide. It was but little more than a single plank ten feet long, and as one walked out on it, though the railing on each side made it perfectly safe, it gave one almost a feeling of dizziness. Above one's head the bell with its monotonous clapper; below one's feet the water: and poised between the two the narrow platform—all too narrow for my liking.

“Now, was it from here that the two men fell?” demanded Jim, still in his réle of inspector.

“Yes, sir,” said Temple quietly. “Though I did not see it happen myself. I was inside attending to the mechanism that works the bell.”

“And did you make no effort to save them?”

Illustration: Above us was the bell; below us the shark-infested water; and poised between the two the narrow platform—all too narrow for my liking

For answer, Temple peered over the side for a moment or two—then he pointed downward without a word. And while I looked I counted three evil shapes slide by in the clear blue depths.

“And when did the last man fall over?” went on Jim. “On what date?”

“On February 24th, sir,” said Temple and MacGregor caught his breath. “In the early morning when the fog was thick. It is entered in my log book.”

“Was the bell ringing at the time?” demanded Jim sharply.

“The bell always rings when there is a fog, sir,” answered Temple, and Jim glanced at MacGregor, who shook his head imperceptibly. “Would you care to hear it now, and see how it works?” he asked quickly.

“Yes,” said Jim, “I would.”

“There is a heavy weight inside, sir,” said Temple, “inside the lighthouse, I mean, which works the bell by means of cogged wheels. On the principle, sir, of the weights in a grandfather's clock.” His tone was that of a man who is patiently explaining something to a child. “If you will come inside, I will start it.”

We followed him in, and he pressed down a lever. Almost at once the bell began to oscillate, slightly at first, but gradually and steadily increasing in swing, until at length the first deep note rang out as it struck the flapper. The notes came deeper and more resonant, though irregularly, for a time, till at last both clapper and bell settled down to a rhythmic swing. Like a huge pendulum the clapper passed backward and forward over the platform outside, while the bell swung down to meet it first on one side and then on the other. And the deep, booming note ringing out every two or three seconds seemed to fill the whole universe with one vast volume of sound. It deadened one's brain: it stunned one: it made one gasp for breath.

SUDDENLY I felt Jim grip my arm. Speech was impossible, but I followed the direction of his eyes. He was looking at David Temple, and so was Jock MacGregor. For the lighthouse keeper was staring at the Queen of the Island with blazing eyes. His hands were locked together, and he was muttering something for we could see his lips moving, while the sweat glistened on his forehead. He seemed to have forgotten our existence, and when Jim touched him on the shoulder he swung round with a hideous snarl.

“Stop the bell!” shouted Jim, and the snarl vanished. He was the disciplined subordinate again, though in his eyes there was a look of sly cunning.

He pressed another lever, and after what seemed an interminable time the bell gradually ceased. Not at once, for it went on swinging under its own momentum for a while, but at length the noise died away: beat after beat was missed till at last it swung in silence, save for a faint creaking.

“Is that satisfactory, sir?” asked Temple quietly. “Because I would like to stow away my stores as soon as possible. Afterward I will go through my log with you.”

Jim nodded. “All right, Temple. Go and attend to your stores.”

The man went out, and we stared at one another thoughtfully.

“February 24th,” said MacGregor. “Did you note that, Jim?”

“I noted it right enough,” answered Jim. “Jock, the man's queer. Did you note his face while that infernal bell was ringing, and he was staring at the mountain yonder?”

MacGregor had strolled over to the window himself, and suddenly he beckoned to us with his hand.

“Come here,” he muttered. “Look at him now.”

BELOW, on the landing stage, knelt David Temple with his arms flung out toward the mist-crowned mountain. For half a minute he stayed there motionless; then he rose and came inside the lighthouse.

“He's worse than queer,” said MacGregor. “He's mad.”

And now I come to the final chapter, and the thing that happened when the mist came down on Corn Reef. Jim and I had spent the night—I cannot say we had slept very much—in the room normally used by the assistant, while Jock MacGregor had stopped in the other room to take his turn with the lamp. At the faintest sign of trouble he was to call us, and to make doubly sure, Jim and I had taken turns sleeping while the other remained awake. There was no good in letting Temple see that we suspected anything, since no steps could be taken till the return of the supply boat. Then Jock MacGregor, had decided that Temple was to go back in it while he remained in the lighthouse till a relief was sent.

During the evening Temple had been quiet and perfectly rational, though I had caught him once or twice eying MacGregor with a curiously furtive expression. He had lit the light and explained the simple mechanism quite normally, and then had stood with us while we watched the beam sweep around the black water below. It was a glorious night such as can only be seen in the tropics, without a trace of fog, and for a time our suspicions were lulled. It seemed impossible that anything could happen in such an atmosphere of peace and beauty. Only once did a stray remark of Temple's bring back our doubts, and then it was due more to our previous suspicions than to the remark itself.

“The Queen is angry tonight,” he said, staring at the island. “She demands a sacrifice.”

“What do you mean by such rot, Temple?” said Jim sternly.

“When she veils her head, sir,” he answered quietly, “her subjects must appease her. Otherwise she will be revenged.”

He left the room with a word of apology, and we heard him going downstairs.

“Native superstition,” grunted MacGregor.

“Perhaps,” said Jim. “But once native superstition gets hold of a white man, Jock, it's the devil.”

AND that is all that had happened before we turned in: little enough to prepare us for the thing that was to happen. It must have been about three o'clock when Jim roused me, and prepared to take my place on the bed. And as we were changing around we heard a ship's siren wail in the distance. And then we heard it a second time. For a moment or two it made no impression on our minds, and then the same thought struck us both simultaneously.

We dashed to the window and looked out—looked out into a thick mist that drifted slowly past, blotting out everything. No water could be seen, no star—just dense, clammy vapor. The fog had come down on Corn Reef, and the bell which had deafened us only that afternoon was silent.

Once again the siren wailed mournfully, and then as we listened we heard a steady creaking such as the bell had made as it had gradually come to rest the day before. And every now and then a strange, dull, thudding noise—creak, thud: creak, thud.

Jim sprang to the door, and turned the handle; but the door refused to budge. We had been locked in, and outside Jock MacGregor was alone with a madman. And, even as we realized it, there came through the open window a faint shout of “Help!”

It took six shots to shatter that bolt, and by the mercy of Heaven there wasn't a second. And then we dashed up the short flight of stairs into the room above—to halt somewhat abruptly as we entered. For confronting us was David Temple, with an iron bar in his hands, and his face was the face of a maniac. But it wasn't at him we were looking—it was beyond him to the place where the platform stretched out into the mist. For the door was open, and we could see the great bell swinging to and fro. But it was at the clapper we were staring, fascinated. For lashed loosely to the end of it and clinging to it desperately was Jock MacGregor.

“The Queen demands a sacrifice!” roared the madman. “Two she has had, and now she requires a third. Stand back!”

There was no time for half measures. MacGregor's voice, breathless and gasping, came to us faintly: “For God's sake, hurry!” And out of the mist, much louder and nearer, wailed the siren.

So Jim shot the poor devil through each arm, and the crowbar crashed to the floor. Even then he tried to stop us till a blow on the point of the jaw put him to sleep. And then it became a desperate race against time. Outside the siren was going continuously, seeming almost on top of us, while standing on the platform we tried to catch MacGregor as he swung past us. But the bell was heavy and it seemed an age before we could check the clapper sufficiently to cut him down. And every moment we expected to hear the dreadful grinding crunch of a ship striking rock. But at last we had him down, and Jim darted to the lever to restart the bell.

The first deep boom rang out, and in the silence that followed before the swing became regular we heard a sudden agonized shout, and the thrashing of a propeller. Then the bell tolled again, and then again. All outside sound was obliterated: only the bell swung on, crashing out its message of warning. And so three sweating men sat and waited for the mist to lift off Corn Reef, while in a corner David Temple, sometime lighthouse keeper, smiled happily to himself, nodding his head in time with the bell. He had put a drug in Jock MacGregor's coffee, we discovered, and the next thing MacGregor knew was when he found himself swinging violently through space.

How even a madman had had the strength to lift a full-grown man and lash him to the clapper was a mystery to us until we discovered some rough steps of the housemaid variety, and even with them the strength required was prodigious. But he'd done it right enough, and for ten minutes MacGregor had swung backward and forward, dazed and half-stunned, while the madman had crouched below him.

At seven o'clock the mist lifted, and we stopped that accursed bell. Out to sea lay a steamer, and a boat was being lowered. Through glasses we saw an officer get in, and then the boat was pulled to the lighthouse.

I have met angry men in my life, but for sheer speechless fury the skipper of the good ship Floriana—one thousand five hundred tons and of mixed cargo—wins in a canter. I don't blame him: when the first clang of the bell rang out he was almost on the reef.

We told him the story and Temple smiled placidly in his corner. And after a while, when he grunted his amazement, he apologized handsomely. He went out to look at the bell, and for a while we stood on the platform. And then that skipper leaned forward, peering at the inside of the bell. In silence he pointed to two dull stains—stains we had not noticed. They were just where the clapper hit the bell—one on each side, and they were a rusty red.

I looked down into the blue water. Three more evil shapes were there—shapes which glided by and disappeared. And then I looked at Taba Island. Clear and beautiful in the morning sun the Queen of the Island rose to the sky. Her crown had disappeared.

Pirates and Radio

BOUND for Colombo across a placid sea, the ship bore a few passengers, a cargo of gold, seven missionaries blood.” with “a crate of Bibles”—and Jim Maitland.

The chief missionary manifested a mysteriously childlike interest in communicating by wireless with a friend on a steam yacht cruising the same waters.

And thereby hangs another Jim Maitland yarn—the most fascinating so far published in the series by Major H. C. McNeile which has been running in McClure's for six months, and will continue throughout the year.

“The Seven Missionaries” is just one of half a dozen unusual stories to be published in McClure's for October.

Copyright, 1923, H. C. McNeile