The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1890-06-11

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your feet shall have dipped in the tide
of the unknown, and your lips will be ST.
lent.
No; this positively will not do.
1t is probably o'clock at night.
am awake and vigilant. There is man
in the room, and he is armed.
Supposing, now, that l were armed.
have used and been familiar with fire
arms since / was a mere boy-accus-
toned to the use of rifle, shot gun and
revolver.
The revolver is necessarily the weapon
which appears in these affrays between
the burglar and the householder. Now,
although | am not what is termed a
"crack" shot with a revolver, it would be
an easy thing for me to put a 80 caliber
ball into man if he were sitting or stand
ing thirty feet from me.
If had my revolver now, would it be
advisable to begin operations? Let us
see. This man is either sitting or stand
ing in some corner Of the room. He would
not stand in the center of the room, for
the tendency is to skulk where the
shadows lie deepest. S,;pposing my re-
That would change the aspect of this
matter into an absolute question of life
or death. The burglar would return the
shot. He would fire at the flash of my
weapon: perhaps hold dark lantern to
one side and dispose of me at one or at
the most two shots.
AS it is almost impossible to determine
where man is who is merely somewhere
in your bedroom, am led to conclude
that promiscuous firing on the part of
the occupant of the bed is not wise &C.
ton; further, that it is suicidal.
This man in the room is doing one of
two things. He either believes that
am fully awake and cognizant of his
presence, or that l am restless without
suspicion and may soon be again in
dreamland.
If l adopt the first idea, he has his
hand on his weapon ready at an instant's
notice to fire. He may be even anxious
and a trife startled. 1t is within the
bounds Of possibility that he may even
believe that | am similarly armed and
watchful, and he may entertain sort
of fear of me. Ha, ha. If it were notso
CHASTITY it might be ludicrous.
On the part of the second theory, if he
thinks me merely drowsy he will wait
for the regular breathing that denotes
sleep before he stirs again. Failing to
hear that he may proceed to stern meas
ures-intimidation or worse. have
given up the ideaof his being an assassin.
It is an Illogical supposition, and the
darkness shall not make me superstitious
or childish.
What if | simply counterfeit sleep and
let him go on with his scheme of plum
dering? But | cannot sleep. AS alert
and cool as l feel myself to be, this ex-
perience has made me wrought up and
nervous. wish it were light, or, failing
that, wish this prowler would make up
his mind to do something. The darkness
is alarming, but the knowledge that it
envelops this wretch makes it tenfold
more fearful. Look into dark cave.
1t is not the mere gloom that makes it
seem so awesome: it is the thought that
in this cave hides-what? You do not
know, but observe yon rolling thunder
cloud: it is black lowering and tremen-
dous. Perhaps it is tornado charged.
At least, what it may hold renders it
more an object of fear than it's mere out
ward form.
How doubly and quadruply sickening,
then, when we feel that the darkness