Hell's Hatches

ris-not quite yet. It was only at the reiterated requests of friends (two of them were young Australian artists I had known in my student days in Paris), to whom

responsibilities of the affair, and that under no circumstances was I to be expected to

d enough of their own pictures to relieve the coldness of otherwise blank walls. These were also South Sea marines-it was a straight seascape show throughout,-but more or less conventional in inspiration and execution. Benchley might have been painting marine backgrounds for an aquarium, so faithfully did he labour to reproduce every detail of jutt

e into my tropical seascapes as would make them convey an intenser suggestion of reality. I did not expect water spaniels to pay me the subtle compliment of trying to gambol in my breakers, nor children to try to launch their toy sailboats in my lagoons.... Benchley's "colour photograph" effects were more likely to attain to those distincti

on of their kind. It was plain, however, that they had been favourably impressed, and were doing the best they could with their comparatively restricted vocabularies. Mere city dwellers, too, most of them, one had to allow for their limited capacity of appreciation for something-the sea-which they knew only from other pictures. But even allowing for that, it was reassuring to find that they were coming across so whole-heartedly. Such capsules of praise as they had in stock were scattered with lavish hands for whoso would to swallow. "The soul of the sea palpitates through every canvas," said the Herald; "you leave the gallery with the tang of blown brine fresh in your nostrils," said the Telegraph; "Austr

e through Sunday mixed-bathing at Coogee and Manley (with occasional ferryboat passages, about the limit the others had gone, I reckoned). Said he, in speaking of "The Seventh Son of a Seventh Son": "The beat of the eternal sea was behind every slash of the brush with which this Fran

eered to sail me in his sloop to Tuka-tuva (the reef on which Bell lost the Flying Scud, it may be recalled) so that I could make some close-range studies of hard-running waves at the point of breaking. And, just to show that there was no hard feeling on my part over the wallop below my belt with which the "Heifer" had finally brought the bout to a close, I accepted. The studies had been made-just a few slashes on oil-cloth with a rather useful waterproof paint I had mixed specially for "slopp

ckle of amused admiration. Said he: "Mister Whitney, that hulkin' ol' lalapalooser there looks like he has all the kick behint him of that bally wallop on the solar plexus you floored me

y, the show was opened to the general public. Under the stimulus of the astonishingly enthusiastic press, the public had come through beyond all expectations. For the next three days the crush at the gallery was, as the Bulletin had it, like a "bargain day rush at Morden's." On Friday, it was advertised, Sir Joseph Preston, R.A., a very distinguished English artist visiting in Australia, had consented t

about, though, was that the speaker seemed to assume that the pictures on exhibition represented my ultimate expression, the best I could do, or could be expected to do; whereas I knew that I had hardly got my foot well planted on the first rung of the ladder. I regretted without resenting t

widening circle of wondering cackle that arose as the news of my unexpected, and not undramatic, appearance spread outward through the jam, I held forth to the beaming Royal Acade

n't know that ten minutes ago so that I could have told them! By Jove, I'll tell them n

s, and the first thing I knew I had been hustled up onto their little dais, and Sir Joseph w

w though, just as I did on that first occasion. It's no very difficult thing to get away with when you know what you want to say-and have the crowd with you. I spoke briefly, but very earnestly-very much to the poin

drews affair had been received, wired that the Hon. Hartley Allen, replying from the Quarantine Station to a note the correspondent had addressed him there, announced definitely that i

, I was even inclined to the opinion that his decision to go south as soon as he could had been influenced by a desire to find out once and for all what attitude I was going to take toward him. This was all to the good. There was no need of my hurrying back to Townsville now. I could stay in Sydney and enjoy my triumph while wat

imself gave out nothing. The correspondents had to confine themselves to reports of his continued improvement in health, as passed out to them by the doctors, and to speculation-columns of it-as to what effect Allen's return might be expected to have upon racing. His elder brother-Sir James, who was now in England-had allowed Hartley's stable to run down a good deal after the latter had been shipped off to

upon the beach of Cleveland Bay, some miles from the town. A hole had been stove in her bow and it would be impossible to get her off before considerable repairs were carried out. As she had not been disinfected since the removal of the plague victims, there would probably be some delay about the repairs, especially as the question of her ownership was in doubt. She had belonged to the m

he Australian Naval Station should detach a gunboat to bring the hero home. Allen, it appeared, had actually tried to avoid meeting the newspaper men, and consented to do so finally only on the condition that he would not be expected to give out anything in the way of

rted him looking rather soft-a good two stone heavier than his former riding weight. He was heavily browned from the tropical sun, showed a tinge of yellow-doubtless from malaria and dengue,-and his face was d

e interviewing. Persistently refusing to answer any questions about himself, he was avid of interest concerning all that had happened in the racing world during his absence. What were the real facts behind the breakdown of the Colchester filly after she had won the Victoria National so handily?

ers interviewed the Hon. Hartley Allen. And when, as one of them put it in somewhat mixed simile,

er, they made up for lost time. The modest hero did this, or the modest hero said that.... There was modesty in the way he stroked his chin, in the shrug of his shoulders, in the way he crossed and uncrossed his legs when sitting. His habit of looking sideways when speaking was rated as a sign of modesty; so was the trick of stroking his cheroot between thumb and forefinger as he smoked. Modest-hero-those words became permane

ack at the curb, rushed at the open carriage and aimed a blow at the breast of the hero with a knife. No whit perturbed, the latter had coolly deflected the thrust by striking up the assailant's elbow with his left hand. Then, seizing the ruffian's wrist with his right hand, he had brought it sharply down on

ection therewith. It was observed, in short, that, while Allen had defended his own body most effectually with his bare hands, as soon as he saw that the man who had attacked him was on the verge of being killed by a bloody-minded mob, qu

in their attempt to identify the fellow. "Just an old Island affair, the big-hearted hero had explained with a careless laugh, as he turned

o have slipped away to the Islands. This was confirmed a few months later, when a boatload of out-bound placer miners were held up and robbed of the fruits of their season's work in the Fly gold fields of New Guinea. Even if one of them, who had once been in Western Australia, had not identified Saunders, the fact that a jar of sulphuric acid had been thrown into the midst of the miners would have connected "The Squid" with the crime beyond a doubt. Australia had but fragmentary record of his later crimes, but he was known to have been mixed up i

n the pearleries after a three-months trip with "Slant" to Singapore had broken her in. Amazing story the whole thing, from its beginning with the girl's mother-a teacher in the Gospel Propaganda Society's school at Thursday Island who had fallen afo

very apt metaphor, for I never heard the girl compared to anything so frigid) rolling was the one to settle with. I had heard of three or four rather ingeniously thought-out attempts he had made to square the account, all of which, however, had failed as a consequence of Allen's quickness of w

toot a horn anent his racing wins; and once, when he was all but swamped-awash to the rails with "Three Star"-I had heard him give a maudlin monologue on men he had put away. But I-and no one else, so far as I knew-had ever heard him talk of the girls he had bagged, though the Lord knows there had been enough of them. (The

tory. Blocked on that trail, they devoted a lot of space to a discussion of the interesting revelation of the hero's Island nickname. More or less ingenious theories as to "Why 'Slant'?" filled the columns of the papers for a number of days. None of them was within a mile of the mark. One of the correspondents fancied the name had been given Allen becau

e how he came to bestow it. There was no story behind it, as some of the papers had hinted. Old "Jack," after having known Allen pretty intimately for a couple of years, came to the conclusion one day that the lanky Sydney-sider was the first man he ever met who persistently and consistently kept him guessing. Given a situation, and the foxy old highwayman had discovered that he could usually tell in advance how any given man would be likely to meet it. It was after

hing success as a point-to-point rider was his amazing faculty for bringing off the unexpected. Once, at Launceston, I saw him win on a hundred-to-one shot (how he happened to be riding the skate I don't know) by delibe

pals got in on the 'Tote' somehow, and-" A warning cough from Lord X-- checked the loquacious "Galloper's" tongue in mid-flight, and, with reddening gill, he faded away w

from the slant of the breeze!"... "Faculty for bringing off the unexpected." I hoped that he wasn't going to disappoint me in the matter of bringing things to a showdown on his arrival in Sydney. But no.... My every instinct