Waterbury Democrat., 1901-05-29


 gE Vague memories remained with lEsskJ him of wandering over the snadowy country. of seeking by bodily fatigue to kill the thoughts rising in him. The full consciousness of all that he had surrendered in yielding up afresh his heritage rolled in on his memory like tl1erwave Of some heavy sea that sweeps down all before 1t. He moved slowly back over the desolate tracks of land stretched between him and the Algerian haIting place. He had no fear that he would find his brother there He knew too we'll the nature with which he had to deal. While yet the caravansary was distant the piteous cries of a mother goat caught his ear. She was bleating be- side a water course, into which her kid of that spring had fallen. He stopped and with some little difficulty rescued the little goat t9fdr its delighted dam.
 9 As sI4a beht 6veriithe water he saw something glitter beneath it. He caugft 1 it in shiss shand 1ando brought 1t up. It was the broken half of chain of gold, with a jewel in each link. He changed color as he saw it. He remembered it as one that Yenetia Corona had worn on the morning that he had been ad- mitted to her. He stood looking at the shining links, with their flashes of pre- cious stones. They seemed to have voices that spoke to him of her about whose beautiful white throat they had been Woven-voices that whispered in- cessantly in his ear, "Take up your birthright, and you will be free to sue to her at least, if not to win her." No golden and jeweled plaything ever tempted a starving man to theft as this tempted him now to break the pledge he had just given.
 His birthright! He longed for it for this woman's sake-for the sake, at least of the right to stand before her as an equal and to risk his chance with others who sought her smile-as he had never done for any other thing which, with that heritage, would have become his. Yet he knew that, even were he to be false to his word and go forward and claim his right, he would never be able to prove his innocence He could never hope to make the world believe him unless the real crim- inal made that confession which he held himself forbidden by his own past action ever to extort
 It was almost noon when, under the sun scorched branches of the pine that stretched it's somber fans up against the glittering azure of the morning skies, he approached the gates of the Algerine house of call, a study for the colors of Gerome, with the pearly gray of its stone tints and the pigeons wheeling above it's corner towers. ? Cecil went within and bathed and dressed and drank some of the thin. cool wine that found it's way hither in the wake of the French army. The l trampling of horses on the pavement 1 below reused his attention. A thrill | of hope went through him that his brother might have lingering con- l science, latent love enough to have made him refuse to obey the bidding to leave Africa. He rose and leaned out. Amid the little throng of riding horses, grooms and attendants who made an open way through the poly | glot crowd of an Algerian caravan sary at noon he saw the one dazzling face of which he had so lately dream ed by the water freshet in the plains. It was but a moments glance, for she had already dismounted from her mare and was passing within with two other ladies of her party. But in that one glance he knew her. He went down into the court below and found her suit.
 "Ten your mistress that I, Louis Victor, have some jewels which belong to her and ask her permission to re- store them to her hands, he said to one of her equerries.
 Give them to me if you have picked them uD," said the man, putting out his hand for them.
 Cecil closed his hand upon them.
 Go and do as bid you.''
 The equerry paused, doubtful wheth- CT or not to resist~tlle tone and the words. A Frenchman's respect for the military uniform prevailed. He went within.
 In the best chamber of the caravan l sary Yenetia- Corona Mas sitting. list: