The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-05-14

| rolling. Behind sat the driver, a little
old-young, talloW-cheeked man under
| an enormous white hat, crown anC
brim of which had so long run to-
gether that it looked like a half-op
umbrella or gigantic mushroom gone
to seed.
"Gyup!" came squealing from his
| inverted V of a mouth. IVY CANT
yin g'loring? Gee, yin miserbul var
| mint. Wher' in creation di yih
| think yih'r gwine? Gyup Dick. Corn.
| Whack Wanter break muh ole
naick, dontchih? Gyup, 'fo' l fan din
fros' off'n both yin. Gyup, / say"
| Crack! went his long whip above the
| undalating red flanks but it did not
| fall. His squirting little eyes had
caught sight of Sara. Instantly he
pulled in his oxen and touched his
marvellous head canopy.
"Uh, Lord hep my time! That you,
Mis- Shepp'd? Kin L do anything for
yih, mann? Yuh're looking puore
/ sick
The concern in that quaint face
ennobled it. Sara's lovely eyes soften
ed as she looked at him.
THANK you, Mr. Moore / was just
a little faint for moment I'm better
now"
She went by with a swift, firm
step, throwing back over her shoulder
a second gently spoken THANK you
| and Good bye"
A moment later she had crossed the
| bridge, and was Fastening along the
road which, here cutting through the
green dusk of thickly crowding young
pines, began the ascent of long and
! lofty hill crowned with a heavy
growth of oak and hickory above
| She had gone but a short distance,
| however, When that wave of deathly
i sickness again flew over her. And as
she stopped, SWaying giddily, it seemed
to her that the young pines we're en-
! dowed with the power of motion, and
/ were croWding in on her with a
strange roaring and the CLEAN of my
| riadS of little mocking red eyes.
The next instant she was again
| walking on, laughing rather wildly at
her own foolish fancies. The roaring
was in her own brain, and the mock
| in eyes were nothing but holly ber-
ries shining among thick masses of
glossy leaves.
But stay! Surely this was not fancy.
| What were these weird shapes in
front blush grey, waving, twisting,
coiling; assuming the most fantastic
.. forms; here melting into one another;
there rent apart and rolling in Won
derful inVolutiOns, flinging out
whitish Wisps like vanishing spectral
| hands, or cTouching mistily at the
roots of trees% and forming depths of
| obscurity out of which goblin faces
| seem to stretch and grin and peer.
Am l losing my senses?" Sara Won
dered, lifting one hand to her burning
head
Somewhere she had seen a copy of
| Dante's Inferno Illustrated by Doree.
and thought her bewildered brain
darted the fear that she had died and
was now in it's horrific depths There
there on the right opened a broad
semi-circle, canopied with rolling
smoke and lit by dozens of fiercely
burning fires There amid them, now
, lost in the boiling wreaths and coils,
now thruSting out an arm or limb or
cOntorted vaporOus face, she giimpsed
dread writhing shapes that froze her
very blood with the paralysis of fear
Yet those Wraith-like arms waved
to eckoned-faScinated her. A
resistless force drew her toward them.
With slow, Wavering steps she went
forward d-nearer-nearer.
Another step-another. Closer the
eddying ke-clouds-closer the
twisting, coiling flames. Her limbs were
quivering her brain staggering; but
she could not stop. Those dread phan-
tom faces rising and sinking i'm the bill
lows of smoke and flame drew her on
on.
And now they were calling her
Hear the hollow. rushing murmur
of their voices! And she must go. Was
not she herself a ghost like they? Had
it been days, years or ages since she
died and drifted into this drear domain
of agony whose horrors flicker up
ward into the earthly life only through
the dim portals of dreams?
A faint cry rose above
the low roar of the licking flames
Saras strength was forsaking her.
Something drop"ed before her eyes
like a great black hand. With out
stretched arms she tottered forward L
few steps and fell prone beside one of
the blazing log-heaps.
ILL.,