The record-union., 1896-12-13

The hunted eyes of the stricken look
| ed into mine with a piercing glance Of
fear.
Monsieur must not" he said in low
voice.
And why not?'
''The waters are bad-bad-haunted.
Il fear no ghosts. Wilt thou show
me the way, Gambler"
'Ii' The idiot fell upon the grass
with sort Of gobbling cry. I thought
it the prelude to fit of some sort, and
| was stepping toward him when he rose
| to his feet, waved me off and hurried
away down the slope homewards.
Here was food for reflection which
l mumbled in secret.
A day or two afterward I joined Ca
| mile at midday on the nights where he
was pasturing his fiocks. He had shift
ed his ground little distance west
| wards, and 1 could not find him at
| once. AT last I spied him, his back to a
| rock, his hand dabbled for GOODNESS in
| little runnel that trickled at his side.
He looked up and greeted me with a
| smile. He had conceived an affection
for me, this poor lost soul.
1T will go soon," he said, referring
to the miniature streamlet. 1T is safe
in the woods, but tomorrow or next
day the sun will lap it up ere it can
reach the skirt of the shadow above
there. A farewell kiss to you, little
stream
He bent and slipped a mouthful of the
clear water. He was in a more reasona-
bic state than he had shown for long,
though the summer solstice was at
hand and the weather sultry to a de-
gree-as 1t had been, I did not fail to
remember, the year of his seizure.
Camille" I said, why to-day hast
thou shifted thy ground a little in the
direction of the Buet ravine?''
He sat up at once with a curious,
eager look in his face.
Monsieur has asked it," he said. "It
was to impel monsieur to ask it that
moved. Does monsieur seek guide?''
Wilt thou lead me, Camille?"
Monsieur, last night l dreamed, and
one came to me. Was it my father?
know not But he put my forehead to
his breast and the evil left it. and 1 re-
membered without terror. Reveal the
secret to the stranger, he said, that
he may share thy burden and comfort
thee; for he is strong, where thou art
weak, and the vision shall not scare
him. Monsieur wilt thou Gomez"
He leaped to his feet and / to mine.
Lead on, Camille; 1 follow
He called to the leader of his flock,
'Petujean, stray not, my little one.
shall be back sooner than the daisies
close" Then he turned to me again.
noticed pallid, desperate look in his
face, as though he were strung to
great effort, but it was the face of a
mindless one still.
DO you not fear?" he said in
whisper; and the apple in his throat
seemed all choking core.
Il fear nothing" 1 answered with
smile; yet the still somberness of the
woods found a little tremor in my
breast.
1T is good,' he answered, regarding
me. The angel spoke truth. Follow,
monsieur
He went off through the trees of a
sudden, and 1 had much ado to keep
pace with him.
He ran as one urged on by a sure
sense of doom, looking neither to right
nor left. Swiftly we made our way,
ever slightly climbing, along the rugged
hillside, and soon broke into country
very. wild and dismal The pastoral
character Of the scene lessened and al
together disappeared. The trees grew
matted and grotesquely gnarled, hud-
ding together in menacing battalions,
save where some plunging rock had
burst like a shell forcing clearing and
strewing the black moss with a jagged
wreck of Splinters. Here no flowers
crept for warmth; no sentinel marmot
turned his little scut with a whistle of
alarm to vanish like a red shadow. All
was melancholy and silence, and the
massed defiance of ever-impending ru-
in. Storm and avalanche and the bit
ter snap Of frost had wrought their
havoc year by year till an uncrippled
branch was a rare distinction. The
very saplings of stunted growth bore
the air Of thieves reared in a rookery
of crime.
We strobe with difficulty in an in
human twilight through this great dark
quickest of nature, and had paused
moment where the thronging trunks
thinned somewhat when a little mouth
ing moan came towards us on the crest
of a ripple of wind. My companion
stopped on the instant and clutched my
arm, his face twisting with panic.
iit ttStdiSr ilioliSitui, Ac SHOOh
out in a terrified whisper.
Courage, my friend. 1t Is that we
come to seek"
'Ah, my Cod yes-it is that, I dare
not-I dare not"
He drew back livid with fear, but /
urged him on.
Remember the dream, Camille" /
cried
aC al ,Soa
monsieur, and 1 will try to lead you to
it."
I drew his arm within mine and to-
gether we stumbled on. The under
growth grew denser and more fantastic;
the murmur filled out, increased and
resolved itself into sound of falling
water that ever took shape. and vol
rme, and depth till it's crash shook the
ground a our feet. Then in a moment
a white blaze of sky came at us through
the trunks and we burst through the
| fringe of the wood to find ourselves fac
ing the opposite side OF a long cleft in
the mountain and the blades edge of
a roaring cataract
It shot out over the lip Of the fall
twenty feet above us in a curve like a
scimitar. passed in one sheet the spot
NIt+Ie We Sltttl. sfitti tiNtu liitp a Sufl-
less pool thirty feet below with a thun-
derous boom. What ii may have been
| in full phases of the stream I know not.
yet even now it was sufficiently mag
nificent to give pause to a dying soul
eager TO shake off the restless horror
OF the world. The fiat of its broad blade
divided the lofty black walls OF a deep
| and savage ravine, on whose Jagged
shelves some starved buskets of rhodo-
dendron shook in the wind of the tor