The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1896-06-25

i@-='''1SsF s@---
Ringbrand unfolded 1t and spelled out the con-
tents.
low went down the avenue and
crouched in the black shadow of low
branehed pine; and Ringbrand, armed
only with the revolver which had been
his companion in the cavern, took his
stand against the trunk of a great oak,
whose spreading limbs overshadowed
the ambush selected by the mountain
GERS. Ffl}oN
Up to the moment when the compile
ton of the arrangements for the cap
tlre of the conspirators had begun to
cancel the factor of excitement, Ring
brand had not reflected upon the pc
cullarly trying nature of the test he
had proposed for himself. When the
plan had suggested itself, he had well
coined it gladly, hurrying forward to
its elimination with the eager impa-
thence of one who imagines he sees the
turning-point of his life in the perspec-
tive and runs impetuously to double it.
After he had taken his position under
the oak, however, the suspense, and the
darkness and silence of the night, be-
gan to dampep the fire of enthusiasm;
the food-tide of excitement turned and
ebbed slowly away; and the heroic re-
tmirements of the part he had volun+
tecred TO. take in the approaching
drama stood out in vivid and disconcert-
ingurelief. Common sense awoke and
demanded reason for the hazardous
plan, pointing the finger of ridicule at
the melodralnatic stage setting, and
suggesting that nothing had been omit
led save o calcium light TO be flashed
upon the scene at the critical moment.
He sawtke absurdity of it all, and how
much more sensible it would have been
toitake Ludlow's suggestion, surround
ing the house with posse of armed
men whose numbers would have made
resistance on the part of the mountain
eers useless and hence improbable. q
q And what was there to be urged
against such safe and practical plan
of procedure? Nothing, or less than
nothing; merely the demonstration of
m abstruse metaphysical problem
within himself; the application of Q
heroic test which had no place outside
the realm Of fiction. And with this
thought it occurred to him that he had
nnconsciously planned the whole thing
upon the lines that would have made
il most effective in story! And then
the suggestion of the calcium light and
The alarmed young woman looking
down upon the theatrical tableau from
her window came again, making him
sick with disgust.
Looking at it from any point of view,
the romantic project, which was more
than likely to cost him his life in, the ex-
ecuting, was merely fantastic idea of
proving himself in some way a knight
without fear-a modern type OF gor-
tesque medieval parsonage who went
about Staying impossible dragons and
disembowellng neurological giants.
1t was Observation-Disclosures preposter-
Gus! and from this point in the argu-
Inent the descent to the Avernus of ter
rDr was easy. At the end of a half-hour
he felt the premonitory spinal chill
heralding a return of the well-known
symptoms; in five minutes more the
paroXysm was upon him, and he was
struggling furiously in the grasp of his
familiar demon, blind, deaf and help
less, with every fiber Of his being strain
ing itself for fight in an impulse so real
that he turned and grasped at the rough
bark of the tree to keep himself from
being carried bodily away by the whirl-
wind of terror.
The attack did not last long, and
fnbout the time the blood began to tingle
in his veins again he heard the muffled
trampling of horses approaching along
the dusty road. At the signal the very
recollection Of his late discomposure
seemed somehow to vanish into the
limbo of remote past; his pulses
quickened and his muscles thrilled
with the vibrations of an accommodating
energy that sang joyously as it leaped
through the tense nerves and the throb
hing arteries. His sharpened sense.
were unnaturally acute; he heard tn,
woody clink of the rails as the mel
made o breach in the zigzag fence, ther
the smothered hoof-beats of the horses
coming across the soft turf of the lawn
amoment later, in an interval of silence
he fancied he could almost hear tn,
whispered instructions given to Jed
When the two men emerged from tn,
deeper shadows of the grove he saw
them quite distinctly in the starlight
they came directly toward his hiding
place. and when they paused within
few feet of the trees he could scarcel,
restrain the eager ferocity that prompt
ed him to rush out upon them. In tn
instant of hesitation he had time to not
that one of them carried an arInful o
lsindling wood; the man gathered
into frner hold while they paused
and there was smothered tinkle o