The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-12-25
BY WALTER G. SMITH.

AOoi - RC1OlO IAC QCSCSnQiuS IlOSl-
And when the sun had passed below
the sea, the western sky was glazed
with amber, against which the island
called Corpus Christi, the Body of Our
Lord, became like a dark altar waiting
for the sacrifice. Soon moonlight soft
eLed the stark lines of the great
rock, and the ocean about it,, as if
powdered with star dust from the
Milky Way, sparkled like field of the
cloth of gold. And so Christmas came
and went as with royal progress and
in pomp and circumstance and sol
emn majesty that befitted the kingly
memories and glories of the day and
the seer-seen tragedy to come.
There was a weird, strident, wailing
cry in the air when awoke on Christ
mas morning in a walled town of the
Manchus-a captured town whose sons
lay dead in heaps outside, their frozen
eyes glazing with dull hate at the
stranger passing unchallenged through
their gates. Still dazed from a
draught of lethal fumes, thought that
the ravening, uncanny sounds, now
rising like the growls of beasts, now
sinking to a single inarticulate shrek
were some goaded chorus from the
Pit, some passionate clamor of the
Il, l<1xrr1 hc licrht
grew, the mind cleared, things got
back their natural look and sound,
heard now in the distance, sent back
human note, uncanny enough, God
knows, but gratefully and surely hui
man. Afterward knew that l had
heard the matin song of pagan SOL
diery, choired upon the gray old city
walls in uncouth salutation of the
dawn. But how sad and desolate it
made the morning of the Christian
| holiday. Faint and alone, prone on a
brick bed in a room where men had
| lived but yesterday and now were
dead, myself still near the dark valley
| through which l had been led by an
unseen hand-perhaps the hand of him
whose baby fingers had been clasped
| in mine on that Christmas morning so
long ago. had no heart to rise. Out
| side the tatters of white winter lay
upon the ground; ravens croaked upon
/ the tiled roof or hoped awkwardly
/ oh 1,a \;
and far above, hid by the scurrying
clouds, the genii of the gales hastened
like petrels of the upper deep to the
| gathering of a mighty storm. Weary
and hopeless of the day, I fell asleep.
When / awoke it was early after
noon The wind had gone far past and
there was beam of sunshine slanting
through a jagged hole in the paper
window by my bed. The long sleep
had refreshed both body and mind
and hunger pressed for food. Then
| footsteps crunehed the snow and in
] the army doctor came, and after him a
comrade of the field, who stood by
with pleasure in his rugged fa2s when
| the man of science said / was getting
/ better and must take the air. Hot
! broth was brought, and the breast OF
fowl and a trimming glass; and sc
| it came about that, with strength re
newed, l ventured to say yes when
pressed to join old friends and new
that night in a Christmas feast. They
would make me comfortable, they said
/ and if fatigued | might creep into 6
sleeping bag and rest on an army cot
Chums of camp and battlefield would
be there; the old Field Marshal was
the guest of honor, unless Prince OF
the Blood should come; and noblemen
of European armies had been summon
ed to the board.
1t was never-to-be-forgotten
Christmas night The dining room, a
manager carpeted deep with rushes, was
a symbol of the Birth. Through the
broken roof stars shone with cold, in
clement light; and about the table OF
the feast torches f1ared and quivered
as the hanging goatskins at the door
way were thrust aside to disclose a
snowy guest. At one end of the man
ger a great dragon flag, captured in a
fierce fight near by, hung from upper
beams, and at the other end a queer
painted cartoon flushed red with Jap
anese victory, was blazoned in bas-
relief against the dark. Swords and
bayoneted guns were hung or stacked
about; spears and guidons were there
while the flags of many countries
brought by the admiral from his fleet
We're intertwined as if in pledge Of
everlasting peace.
And the generous banquet. 1t was
as cosmopolitan as the guests. Prince
and Marshal and Admiral found the
tidbits that meant Home. The splen,
did Russian had his white vodka and
his black, hard, smooth caviar, un.
known on Western tables; the French
yiscount found Partisan dainties and
vintage of his grape-trellised land; the