The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1899-04-01

out of its balance, turned from rs
course and went plunging downward
upon a new track, tearing its wild way
through brush and brambles, but leav-
ing the crouching woman safe to one
side. AS the thunder of it's descent
echoed sororously up from the far deeps
of the valley, Cain, with q tremulous
cry of joy to her whom he had saved,
fell faint and quivering upon the sward.
When he opened his eyes the woman
knelt beside him, staunching a cut on
his shoulder and touching his face with
her soft hands.
what is it feel toward thee ?" he
said after little while. at is some
thing SO sweet as to be pain. Leave
me no more, or, fairest child of earth,
for l could not bear this pain in my
heart if deprived of the sight of thee.
Thou canst not depart from me again
Why, indeed, should 1 let thee go? Is
there not strength enough left in the
arms of Cain to hold so frail a thing as
thou? But no; thou disarmest me with
thine eyes,"
The woman looked lovingly upon his
dark beauty and his strength, and said
softly: what wouldst thou have of
me?"
II know not-I know not" he said,
helplessly, as one who longs, but longs
for what he knows not. Then the dark
ness was made clear in his mind and he
thus concluded: "As my mother is to
my father, so be thou to me-"
Though woman, he knew she was
not as his mother. Beautiful as she was,
he felt that there was something in her
that correspondent with the fatal flaw
in himself. Yet this did not repel him.
1t lacked some time of the falling of
night when they descended into the
plain, whose long grass waved mysteri-
ously in the pale twilight, and, hand in
hand, wandered until they beheld the
outlines of city with temples and tow
ers and palaces darkened against the
sky. To him this was a wonder; but
she told him it was there she lived, and
thither he must go with her and no
harm would befall him.
And there he found toll that helped
him forget awhile that deed in the
lonely glen in the Land of Rest. And
she who had led him into the Land of
Wandering became his wife. Of that
union were born two sons, and, when
Cain looked upon them, his soul often
grew sick within him, for one was like
unto himself, and the other was Abel
come back to life again. Strange to
say, he loved the fair-haired boy With
surprising tendernessap md the sight
of the dark-browed youth was almost
hateful to him. And Adah, his wife
loved the laughing, blue-eyed boy, too,
and saw in him the beautiful dream of a
mothers love come true.
And Cain waxed very prosperous
His great strength, derived from tn.
wild woods, served him we'll in the be-
ginning. This begot skill, and, after
that, there came to him the sense of
power over other men. In the course
of time he became chieftain over the
Shadowy City. Despite the crime that
had stained his soul, he had attained
everything that the heart could desire,
and he knew that he had mastered the
wild demon within that had once risen
and slain his brother. Could it be, he |
wondered, that he had done no wrong
at all?
One evening he had held a revel in |
his palace in honor of the councillors of |
the city. In magnificence it had sur
passed anything of the kind ever given
by chieftain, and it was late before
the guests had departed. Cain had dis
missed his slaves until the morrow, and |
he sat alone in the banquet-room medi- |
tating upon the splendor about him,
and almost doubling the reality of the
honors that had come upon him. But
many as they were, he knew that they /
did not satisfy his soul, for deep down
in his heart was ever gnawing wish
for word out of the old days and for
glimpse of that secluded hollow in the
Land of Rest beyond the Hills of the
Sky. Even in the moments of his high
est triumphs the rocks and trees of
that glen would come waveringly be-
fore his eyes.
While he sat thus moodily dreaming
At the table, a young man entered the
apartment noisily and stood before
him. He had evidently been under the
Impression that the hall was deserted,
Tor he quailed at sight of its solitary oc-
,upant. Somewhat abruptly he saluted
lis father, and then his tremulous hand
sought glass, filled with red wine,
which stood upon the table. Raising it
% his lips, he drained it to the dregs.
An unaccountable terror seized the
oul OF Cain. The frown upon the
Iouth's brow, the madness in his eye,
he disorder of disappearance, recalled
omething from the past, and he saw
imself in the son who stood before