Omaha daily bee., 1885-01-31

II.
The mountains that had been wrapped
in purple mists when they had sent their
sweet, fresh breezes into the heart of
midsummer, stood up blue and clear
against the cold, gray sky OF November.
All day long a norther had been roaring
down from them, twisting the bare,
thotny branches of the mesquite thlokets,
creaking the limbs of the great, isolsted,
| olive colored liveoaks; whistling through
the dry grass of the little prairie, striking
like a solid thing upon the shivering sides
of the shelterless, gaunt. l%ong.horned
cattle. and sweeping with a moan into
the streets of the town. The little town
itself, all the warmth and color blown
out OF it, looked deserted, for 1t wac
| Sunday, and every men was housed with
his own In the glow of his hearth fire.
As night fell the wind grew kecner,
| with q suggestion of elect upon It. The
old stage numbered in, srousing the dogs
as 1t passed, but presently these dropped
into stiffness again. The lights behind
the windows began early to disappear,
and one by one went out, except in a
house far down in the hollow, where the
divine hour of a woman was approaching
there only twlnkled all night the feeble
rays of a lamp.
There, and In the square stone jail
where the guards watched and dozed al'
ternately in the hall below, and in the
cells above the prisoners shivered on their
scsnty pallets.
Down the long hill, close upon mid
night, into the midst of this stiffness and
gloom, rode two score aud more of men.
Grim, silent and pitilesss, with faces
yelled and belts bristling with weapons,
and they came like phantoms from some
unknown Dark.
The heavy thud of a pondereus beam
upon the door of the jail The guards
start to their feet. The prisoners grasp
each other with a hush of expectation in
to which creeps the hope of dellverance.
Again and again the dull sound mingles
with the aver increasing roar of the wind
and dash of the rain. Then there Is the
crash of splintering wood and a rush like
that of doom, silent and mighty, up the
narrow stairway, with the white and
stricken guards driven on before. Dellv-
%erance2 The solid key groans in the
lock; the smoky lamp throws a CHASTITY
glare in the cold cell. 4 + 4 And
presently energies into the freezing night
air q long, double fileof men, whose faces
are hidden, but whose clenched hands
betray too well a lack of mercy; and in
the midst thereof walked two barefooted,
shlvering, half-naked creatures, with the
ropes already knotted about their necks.
And go silently hurries this ghostly
procession up the wind-swept hill and
across the barron heath, that not even the
watch-dogs are aroused from their Stun
beers. One old hunter, indeed, lifts his
head from his pillow, with the instinct OF
danger upon HIM; rises upon his elbow
and listens to the soughing of the wind,
while the glow of the dying fire reddens
the barrel of the rifle swung above the
door, laughs ~contentedly as he hears
nothing else an drops back into dream
land.
Behind, the Jail doors are left wide
I, open, but Ethe other prisoners, fro
zen with horror, crowd back into theil
!, cells and pray.
And out yonder the work is finished
finished remorselessly and i'll silence. One
of the victims, indeed, begs for the life OF
his young brother, and the other prays
that he may be shot. But this is all. But
white and cold already, before death ha
had time to freeze the blood i'll thei
veins, they are left swinging to and frc
i'll the frantic gusts of wind; while those
yelled phantoms of the night mount their
horses and ride swiftly back into the un'
known dark from whence they came.
The little town sleeps peacefully on
and midnight has not yet sounded.
, 1t is still the Lord His Day.