Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1895-03-02

fall, groan, and once again the invisible
mnltitudes whispered and rustled.
Some one has been killed" muttered
Francisco i'll Leonard S car.
'Who is it, wonder"
Leonard shuddered, but made no answer,
for a great hand was placed upon his
mouth in warning.
AT length the portentous quiet was
broken, and a voice spoke, the voice of
Nam, the priest. In the silence all that he
uttered could be heard plainly, but his
! words came from far away, and the sound
of them was still and small.
Hear me, ye children of the snake, We
ancient People of the Mistl Hearken to
me, Nam, the priest of the snakel Many
generation gone in the beginning of
time, so runs the legend, the mother god
dess whom we worship from of cid de-
scended from heaven and came hither to
us, and with her came the snake, her son.
While she tarried in the land the crime of
crimes was wrought, the darkness slew
the daylight, and she passed hence, we
know not how or where, and from that
hour the land has been a land of mist, and
its people have wandered in the mist, for
he whose name is darkness has ruled over
them, answering their prayers with death.
of his wickedness he must put off the flesh
of men and descend into the holy place of
water, where, as we and our fathers have
known, his symbol dwells eternally, taking
tribute of the lives of men. Yet ere that
crime was wrought the mother gavo a
word of promise to her people. Now l
am about to die at the hands of him |
bore, for so it is fated, she said, but not
forever do | leave you, and not forever
shall my son be punished by putting off
the flesh of men. Many generations shall
I go by, and we will return again and rule
over you, and the veil of mist shall be
lifted from your land, and we shall be
| great III the earth. Till then choose your
| kings and let them govern you. Moreover,
| forget not my worship and see to it that
| throughout the ages the altar of the snake
| is wet with blood, and that he lacks not
| the food he loves, and will give you a
sign by which we shall be known when at
| length the fate is accomplished and
| the hour of forgiveness is Mt hand AS
| a fair maid will | come again, a maid
! lovely and white, but because of his sin
| the snake my son, shall appear i'll the
| shape of that which sits within your tenn
| pie, and his hue shall be black and his face
| hidcous. Out of the earth will we arise,
and we will call to you, and We shall know
us, and we will tell you our holy names
that shall not be spoken aloud from this
hour to that hour of our coming. But be-
ware lest we are deceived and false gods
set themselves up among you, for then
shall the last evil fall upon you.
Thus, Children Of the Mist, did the
mother speak to him who was her chief
| priest in the long ago, and he graved it
/ with iron ON the stone of that wherein /
| stand And now the time is full, and it
! has been given to me, his successor, in my
old age, to see the fulfillment of the proph.
| ecy.
Tho time is full, and this night the
promise of the past is accomplished, for,
| People of the Mist, the mother and the
| son, whose names arc holy have appeared
to rule their children Yesterday they
came, yc saw them, and in your ears they
| called aloud the sacred names. AS maid
| en- fair and white and as a dwarf black
and hideouS have they come, and Aca is
tho name of the maiden, and Jal is the
name of the dwarf. "
He ceased, and his voice died away in
the echoes of the great place. Once again
there was silence, broken only by the seeth
| ing sound of waters and the indefinable
murmur of the unseen throng beneath.
Leonard stood still awhile, then edged
| himself gently forward with the design Of
discovering where and upon what they
: were standing. His curiosity was soon
met with a violent check, for before he
| had gone yard he felt that his right foot
was dangling in space, and it was only by
a strong effort that he prevented himself
| from falling, whittier he knew not.
Recovering his balance, he shuffied him
self back again to the side of Francisco
and whispered warning to him not to
move if he valued his life As he spoke he
noticed that to the east the blackness of
| the night was turning gray with the light
| of the unrisen moon. Already her rays,
striking upward, frightened the sky
above and the mountains behind, and
| from them fell pale reflection, which
grew gradually stronger and clearer. Now
he could discover that close upon him to
the left a black mass lowered high into
| the air, and that beneath him cleaned
something like the foam ON broken water
For a time he watched this water, or what
ever it might be. until a smotNsTed excla
| nation from Francisco caused him to look
up again. AS he looked tho edge of the
| fun moon rose above the horizon, and by
slow degrees a wonderful sight was re
vealed to him. Not till the moon was fully
up did he see everything, and to describe
all as he discovered it piecemeal would be
difficult, if not impossible. This was what
he saw at length:
Before him and beneath him was a vast
and rhofless building, open to the east,
covering some two acres of ground and
surrounded by titanic walls so feet or
more in height. The building was shaped
I. s.ls =
exception of the space Immediately beneath
him, its area was filed with stone seats,
and round its vast circumference stone
seats rose tier on tier. These were all &C.
cupied by men and women in thousands,
and, except at the farther end, scarcely
place was empty. AT the western extrem-
ity of the building huge statue lowered
20 or so feet into the air, hewn, to all APP
pearance, from mass of living rock. At
the back of this colossus, and not more
than hundred PAGES from it, the sheer
mountain rose, precipice upon precipice,
to the foot of the white peak clad in eter-
| nal snow. 1t was this peak that they had
seen from the plain when the mist lifted,
and the statue was the dark mass beneath
! it which had excited their curiosity.
This statue was fashioned to the shape
of a huge seated dwarf of hideous coun-
| tenance, with bent arms outstretched in a
slightly forward direction and palms
| turned upward as though to bear the
weight of the sky. This fearful colossus
stood, or rather sat, upon platform of
rock, and not more than four PAGES from
its base, so that the outstretehed hands
and head bent slightly forward, overh1ng
it indeed was circular gulf measuring
perhaps 80 yards across in which seething
waters ragged and boiled. Whence they
came and whittier they went it was impos
sible to see, but Leonard discovered after
ward that here was the source of the river
which they had followed for so many days.
Escaping from the gulf by underground
passages that it had followed for itself
through the solid rock, the two branches
of the torrent passed round the walls OF
the town. to unite again in the plain be-
low. How the pool itself. was supplied
Leonard was destined to learn in after
days, SO nothing need be said of it here
Between the steep polished sides of this
rock basin and the feet of the statue was
placed an altar, or sacriflcial stone. Here
ON this ledge, which covered an area no
greater than that of small room, and in
front of the altar stood man, bound, in
whom Leonard recognized Olfan, the king,
while on either side of him were priests,
naked to the waist and armed with sacri-
fetal knives Behind them again stood
the little band of settlement men, trem-
bling with terror, nor were their fears
groundless, for there among them lay one
of their number dead. This was the man
whose nerve had broken down, who had