ed reward for
painstaking and intelligent service, and as a stepping stone to posts
of greater importance and responsibility; but, on the other hand, he
had been married to the Hon. Alice Rutherford for scarce a three
months, and it was the thought of taking this fair young girl into the
dangers and isolation of tropical Africa that appalled him.

For her sake he would have refused the appointment, but she would not
have it so. Instead she insisted that he accept, and, indeed, take her
with him.

There were mothers and brothers and sisters, and aunts and cousins to
express various opinions on the subject, but as to what they severally
advised history is silent.

We know only that on a bright May morning in 1888, John, Lord
Greystoke, and Lady Alice sailed from Dover on their way to Africa.

A month later they arrived at Freetown where they chartered a small
sailing vessel, the Fuwalda, which was to bear them to their final
destination.

And here John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice, his wife, vanished from
the eyes and from the knowledge of men.

Two months after they weighed anchor and cleared from the port of
Freetown a half dozen British war vessels were scouring the south
Atlantic for trace of them or their little vessel, and it was almost
immediately that the wreckage was found upon the shores of St. Helena
which convinced the world that the Fuwalda had gone down with all on
board, and hence the search was stopped ere it had scarce begun; though
hope lingered in longing hearts for many years.

The Fuwalda, a barkentine of about one hundred tons, was a vessel of
the type often seen in coastwise trade in the far southern Atlantic,
their crews composed of the offscourings of the sea--unhanged murderers
and cutthroats of every race and every nation.

The Fuwalda was no exception to the rule. Her officers were swarthy
bullies, hating and hated by their crew. The captain, while a
competent seaman, was a brute in his treatment of his men. He knew, or
at least he used, but two arguments in his dealings with them--a
belaying pin and a revolver--nor is it likely that the motley
aggregation he signed would have understood aught else.

So it was that from the second day out from Freetown John Clayton and
his young wife witnessed scenes upon the deck of the Fuwalda such as
they had believed were never enacted outside the covers of printed
stories of the sea.

It was on the morning of the second day that the fir