L THING

THE SHUTTLE

CHAPTER I

THE WEAVING OF THE SHUTTLE

No man knew when the Shuttle began its slow and heavy weaving from shore
to shore, that it was held and guided by the great hand of Fate. Fate
alone saw the meaning of the web it wove, the might of it, and its place
in the making of a world's history. Men thought but little of either web
or weaving, calling them by other names and lighter ones, for the time
unconscious of the strength of the thread thrown across thousands of
miles of leaping, heaving, grey or blue ocean.

Fate and Life planned the weaving, and it seemed mere circumstance
which guided the Shuttle to and fro between two worlds divided by a gulf
broader and deeper than the thousands of miles of salt, fierce sea--the
gulf of a bitter quarrel deepened by hatred and the shedding of
brothers' blood. Between the two worlds of East and West there was no
will to draw nearer. Each held apart. Those who had rebelled against
that which their souls called tyranny, having struggled madly and
shed blood in tearing themselves free, turned stern backs upon their
unconquered enemies, broke all cords that bound them to the past,
flinging off ties of name, kinship and rank, beginning with fierce
disdain a new life.

Those who, being rebelled against, found the rebels too passionate
in their determination and too desperate in their defence of their
strongholds to be less than unconquerable, sailed back haughtily to the
world which seemed so far the greater power. Plunging into new battles,
they added new conquests and splendour to their land, looking back with
something of contempt to the half-savage West left to build its own
civilisation without other aid than the strength of its own strong right
hand and strong uncultured brain.

But while the two worlds held apart, the Shuttle, weaving slowly in the
great hand of Fate, drew them closer and held them firm, each of them
all unknowing for many a year, that what had at first been mere threads
of gossamer, was forming a web whose strength in time none could
compute, whose severance could be accomplished but by tragedy and
convulsion.

The weaving was but in its early and slow-moving years when this
story opens. Steamers crossed and recrossed the Atlantic, but they
accomplished the journey at leisure and with heavy rollings and all such
discomforts as small craft can afford. Their staterooms and decks were
not crowded with people to whom the