The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1902-02-28
CHAPTER XIII.-CoNT1NUED.
Pub BY Harper Bros Copyright 1901 by Cutoifo Hyns

Now and again these monsters
would get caught in some vast fissur-
ing of the ground, but not often.
Their speed of foot was great, and
their sagacity keen. They seemed to
know when the worst boilings of the
mountains might be expected, and
then they found safety in the deeper
lakes, or buried themselves in wallows
Of the mud. Moreover, they were
more kindly constituted than man to
withstand one great danger of these
regions, in that the heat of the wa
ter did them no harm. Indeed, they
will lie peacefully in pools where sud-
den stream-bursts are making the wa
ter leap into boiling fountains; and I
have seen one run quickly across a
flow of molten rock which threatened
TO cut it off, and not be so much as
singed in the transit
In the midst of such neighbors, then,
was my new life thrown, and exist
ence became perilous and hard to me
from the outset. I came near to know
ing what fear was, and indeed only
4 fervent trust in the most high gods,
and nrm belief that my life was al
ways under their fostering care, pre-
vented me from gaining that horrid
knowledge. For long enough, till I
learned somewhat of the ways of this
steaming, sweltering land, l was in
ss miserable a case as even PhOrenice
could have wished to see me. My
clothes rotted from my back with the
! I
as a savage from Europe; my limbs
were racked with agues, and 1 could
find no herbs to make drugs for their
relief; for days together l could find
no better food than tree-grubs and
leaves; and often when l did kill
beasts, knowing little of their quail
ties. ate those that gave me pain and
sickness.
But as man is born to make himself
adaptable to his surroundings, so as
the months dragged on aid 1 learn
the limitation of this new life of mine,
and gather some knowledge of it's
resources. As example: I found a
great black tree, with hollow core,
and a hole into it's middle near the
roots. Here I harbored, till one night
some monstrous lizard, whose sheer
weight made the tree rock like a sap
ling, endeavored to suck me forth as
a bird picks worm from hollow
log. I escaped by the will of the gods
Il could as much have done harm to
q mountain as injure that horny
tongue with my weapons-but I gave
myself warning that this chance must
not happen again.
SO I cut myself a ladder of foot
holes on the inside of the trunk till
I had reached point ten man-heights
from the ground, and there cut other
notches, and with tree-branches made
a floor on which I might rest. Later,
for luxury, I carved me arrow-slit
windows in the walls of my chamber,
and even carried up sand for hearth,
so that I might cook my victual up
there instead of lighting a fire in all
the dangers of the open below.
BY degrees, too, began to find how
the large-scaled fish of the rivers and
the lesser turtles might be more rap
idly captured, and so my ribs threat
ened less to start through their prop
er covering of skin as the days went
on. But the lack of salads and gruels
could never overcome. All the green
meat was tainted so powerfully with
the taste of tars that never could
force my palate to accept it. And of
course, too, there remained the peril
of the greater lizards and the other
dangers native to the place.
But as the months began to mount
3nto years, and the brute part of my
nature became more satisfied, there
came other longings which it was less
easy to provide for. From the ivory
OF a river-horse's tooth 1 had endeav-
ored to carve me a representation of
Nais as last l had seen her. But,
though my fingers might be loving and
my will good, my art was of the dull
est and the result-though I tried
time and time again-was always
clumsy and pitiful. Still, in my eyes
Il carried some suggestion of the origi-
nal-a curve here, an outline there
and it made my old love glow anew
within me as I sat and ate it with my
eyes. Yet it did little to satisfy my