Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1902-06-04


| with the symbol of our Lord the Sun
glowing in his hand, and burst into
| flow of cursing. 1t was hard for me
| to hear his words. The roar of the
| waters which poured up over the land,
and beat in vast waves against the
| Sacred Mountain itself, grew nearer
and more loud. But the old man had
| his say.
Phorenice gave orders to her guards
for his killing; yes, tried even to rise
from the litter and do the work her
self; but Zaemon held the symbol to
| his front, and it's power in that SUI
| preme moment mastered all the arts
that could be brought against it. The
majesty of the most high gods was vim
dicated, and that splendid empress
knew it and lay back sullenly among
the cushions of her litter a beaten
woman.
Only one person in that rigid knot
and that was Ylga. She came-out to
the side of the ark, and leaned up and
cried me farewell Though the gath
ering roar of the flood.
81 would I might save you and take
you with u.s. said.
GAS for that" she said, with a GEES
ture, 81 would not come if you asked
me. l am not woman that will take
anything less than all. But 1 shall
meet what comes presently with the
memory that you will have me always
somewhere in your recollection. /
know somewhat of men, even men of
your stamp, Deucalion, and you will
never forget that you came very near
to loving me once"
think, too, she said some thing fur
Their, concerning Nais, but the below
ing rush of the waters drowned all
other words. A great mist made from
the steam sent up by the swamped
burning mountains stopped all accur-
ate view, though the blaze from the
fires lit it like gold. But had last
sight of a horde of soldiery rushing
up the slopes of the mountain, with
scum of surge billowing at their
heels and licking many of them back in
its clutch. And then my eye fell on old
Zaemon waving to me with the symbol
to shut down the door in the roof of
the ark.
obeyed his last command, and went
down the stair and closed all ingress
behind me. There were bolts placed
ready, and 1 shot these into their sock
cts, and there were Nais and l alone,
and cut off from all the rest of our
world that remained.
1 went to the place where she lay,
and put my arms tightly around her.
Without, we heard men beating des-
perately on the ark with their weap-
ons, and some who even climbed by the
battens to the top and wrenched to
try and move the door from it's fasten-
ings. The end was coming very near
to them now, and the great crowd of
them were mad with terror.
would have given much to have
known how Phorenice Jared in that
final tumult, and how she faced it,
could see her, with her lovely face and
her wondrous eyes, and her rudy hair
curling about her neck, and by all the
| gods! [ thought more of her at that
last moment than of the poor land she
had conquered and misgoverned and
! brought to this horrid destruction.
There is no denying the fascinat ion
which Phorenice carried with her.
But the end did not daily long with
its coming. There was a~little surge
that lifted the ark a hands breadth or
SO in its cradle, and set it back again
with jar and culver. The blows
from axes and weapons ceased on it's
lower part, but redoubled into frenzied
gatherings on its rounded roof There
were some screams and cries also
which came to us but duly through
the thickness of it's ponderous sheath
ing, though likely enough they were
sent forth at the full pitch of human
lungs outside. And then another surge
came, roaring and laundering, which
picked up the great vessel as though
it had been feather, and spun it gid
Oily; and after that we touched earth
or rock no more.
| We tossed about on the crest and
troughs of delirious seas, a sport for
the greedy gods of the ocean. The
lamp had fallen, and we crouched there
in darkness, DULY weighed with the
burden of knowledge that we alone
were saved out of what was yesterday
a mighty nation.