The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-10-24

board one by one, for they thawed out
that's what they done in tn open
Polar sea. Mebbe ye don't believe they
thawed out there?" and he raised his
voice again, glaring at us defiantly.
THE most natural thing in the world,
my good man." said l soothingly, at
the same time placing my hand upon
his forehead and eXerting myself in
way which 1 have sometime found to
produce a semi-hypnotic effect on GER
tain patients. 1t seemed to have an
influence in the present case; for the
man grew calmer almost immediately,
and, hitching himself over nearer to
the side of the cot, turned toward me
an inquiring glance. Then, after a
pause, he said in slower and quieter
tones:
In the beginnin' the stars revolved
in q tholiform manner That's DiOg-
enes Laertius. Mebbe ye never read
him?'
To say that I was astonished at
such an apparent sign of erudltion,
would be putting it mildly; though l
hardly imagined that the remark meant
more than the disconnected wander
ings of mind that had run across
more or less queer learning-a not un-
usual thing among the labOring classes
placed my patient.
"'There shall be no night there'-do
We mind that?" he went on, still eye
ing me closely and with anything but
the look of a delirious man.
A shade of apparent disappointment
crossed his face as he peered into what
must have been the Darkness of mine.
Then, drawing himself still closer, he
said:
"Mebbe ye never read tn Avista
where it says-look how I remember
it now: % Maker O. the material
world, thou Holy One! What lights
are there in the Vara which Yima
made? Vara, take it, bein' the garden
an Yima a sort O. heather Adam. An
here's what Aluno Mazda answered:
There are uncreated lights an created
lights. There the stars, the moon an
the sun, are only once year seen to
rise an set, an a year seems only a
day There, sir, amt l a memory for q
seafarin' man." and he fell back upon
the cot and eyed me with look of
undisguished triumph.
AS for me, astonishment was still my
controlling sensations, but through 1t
all / began to imagine that l saw a
gleam of light-strange. weird and in
conceivable. AS luck would have it, I
uuppCiCu W NiloN tHdl tHt NlSld W as
the book that contained the ancient
Iranian theology, though I had never
been ambitious enough to try to ex-
anime it. My hand still rested upon
the patients brow and perhaps that
prompted me to ask, causually:
How did you get that wound, my
good MANI"
The triumphant look on his face fad
ed into an expression Of unutterable
awe, and / found myself shivering al
most before me answered.:
9TH angel o. the Lord"
That answer decided me. The man
was undoubtedly insane, and, as If to
confirm my diagonsis. he burst out the
next moment into another TRADE of
words.
''Yes; through the ice wall-through
an through it, an the Lord only knows
why He let us through-me an the
dead men, only the dead men didn't
matter. They couldn't eat O. three. but
1 could an landed clear an free at the
gate o the garden an seen it all, with
the flowers a CROWN an the trees an
the gold fruit in the branches, an then
he come"
"WhO?" ! asked, breathess.
'Th' angel, o. course; an / heerd him
call out like the thunder an the fire
was a-flashin' in his hand an then
1 felt it over me eyes an down l goes
oh! Ye don't know no other man, ]
vow, what's been slashed wi tn sword
O. an angel an lived to tell O. it; say
now. do ye, sir?"