Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1901-11-14

P.<s~C. NShac met HEF lover El8nc&
and saw that he was singularly di.
turbed.
The place was like hideous gar
ing pit. A double winding of th
channel closed it in above and be
low. Some forty or fifty feet owe
their heads, against pure sky Q
loveliest blue, waved a shaggy firing
OF salt grasses, yellowing in the au
I tumn air. This harsh and meagr,
heritage encircled the rim of tn
chasm, and seemed TO make the QUITE
world Of men infinitely remote. Th,
sun, an houror two past noon, glares
down Whitley into the gulf, ans
glistened, IN a myriad Of steely re
fections. from the polished but ir
regular sleeps Of slime. There wa.
something so strange and monstrou.
in the scene that Margaret's dull
misery was quickened to a nameless
horror. Suddenly a voice, which
she hardly recognized as that of her
lover, said slowly and steadily:
Margaret, this is the end of our
journey. We have come to the end. >
Looking up she met Crewe's eyes
fastened upon her with gaze which
seemed to sustain her and filled her
nerves with strength. With the
end of his uncertainty his will be-
came clear, and his resolution as
perfect as tempered steel.
An Indian had brought two stakes
and thrown them on the mud Mt the
leaders feet. Margaret looked at
the rough-trimmed saplings, at the
tide-mark far up the dreadful slope,
then again into her lover s face. She
understood but she gave no sign,
save that her skin blanched to a
more deathly pallor, and she ex-
claimed in a voice of poignant re-
gret: Have we kept silence all
these long hours only for this? ? And
/ had so much to say to youl"
There will be time" he said gen
tly, and his voice was q caress.
The food-tide has not yet begun,
and it will take some hours. And
1t was well, dear, that we could not
speak; for so you had hope till the
last to support you. while / had
none, having heard the Indians say
we were to die, though they said not
in my hearing. when or how. Had
you known, you might not have had
this courage ofyours, that now gives
me strength to endure the utmost.
Dear, your heroic fortitude has been
everything to me-"
A faint flush of pride rose into
the girls face, and she stretched out
her pinioned arms to him, and cried:
You shall not be deceived in me.
/ will be worthy of you, and willn
shame our race before these beasts. +"
BY this time the stakes were driv-
en- into the strong clay. They were
placed some way up the slope, and
one a little space above the other.
To the lower stake they fastened
Crewe. AS the girl was being
bound to the other, her arms were
freed fora moment that the savages
might the more readily remove her
upper garments, and by a swift
movement she loosened her hair so
that it fell about her to her knees
the splendid Neville hair, still IA
nous in the Province. There was
no bounty then on English scalps.
and the horror of the scalping-knife
was not threatened them. When
the savages had their task complete,
they laughed in their victims faces
and retreated up the steep and over
the grassy rim.
Are they gomez" asked the girl,
No, they are lying in wait to
watch us" answered Crewe; and
as he ceased speaking a muffied
sound was heard, and with sudden
hubbub that filed the chasm with
clamor, the first of the food tide
came foaming round the curve, and
the descending current halted as if
in fear of the meeting. The next
moment the bed of the stream was
hidden by boiling reddish torrent,
racing up the channel, and the tide
was creeping by inches toward the
captives' feet. For an hour or more
the bright gulf of death was SO loud
in this turmoil and with the echoes
from the red walls of mud, and the
yellow eddies of foam whirled and
swept SO dizzily past their eyes,
that the captives' senses were dull
ed in a measure as if by crude ano-
dyne or vast mesmeric influence.
When, however, the channel was a.
bout one-third full and the water
beginning to cover Crewe's feet,
the food became more quiet and eq-
uable, spreading smoothly over freer
spaces. Presently there was q
frightfnl silence. intensified by the
steady sunlight, and broken only by
the Sfealfhv soft rrrsh and snaka