069- The Fourth Man -Wilms Herbert

Suspense, which is usually heard at this hour on Thursday nights, is taking its customary summer holiday. Suspense returns to the air eight weeks from tonight on Thursday, September 1st. You are drifting on the glossy surface of a burning tropical sea, trapped aboard a flimsy raft, with three murderous companions from whom you cannot escape.

We offer you, escape, designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure. Tonight we take you to New Caledonia in the South Pacific, not far from the town of Numea, a French penal colony as notorious as Devil's Island, and a trip that staggers the imagination,

as John Russell told it in his gripping tale, The Fourth Man. Heft stood to open sea. A mat of pandanus leaves served for its sale in a paddle of wood for its helm. Its flooring was woven of reeds and bamboo sticks and rested on triple rows of bladders.

It was light, elastic, fit to ride any weather. And it carried four men. Three of them sat huddled together at the far end. Their bodies were blackened with dried blood. The hair upon them was long and matted.

They wore only the rags of convicts blue canvas uniforms. On wrist and ankle they carried their mark. The dark wrinkled stain of the manacles. There was Du Bois, Doctor, Leader, Man of the World, Murder.

Friends, the thing is done. And Feneru, Forger, Ladies Man, weakling, coward. Yes, we got away all right and the one known as the parrot beef and cutthroat so far So good and by way of celebration gentlemen may I offer you cigarettes cigarettes You are a marvel a magician. Oh look at them white and fresh as though. They are just come from the package