The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1905-06-23

CHAPTER xlv.-continued.

honor. The heavens We're brass, With
all the horizons narrowed to Il bcund-
Ing wall to hem me in on every side.
There was no sally-port in all this wall
save one-the one that death had
promised to open at the dawn. The
promise had been broken. True. death
had thrust the key within the lock, and
l had heard the grating of the bolts;
and yet the key had been withdrawn
and l was left a prisoner of life.
There was no hope of other outlet.
Now there was space to view 1T calmly,
| saw 20 foolish was the thought that
would connive at any breaking of the
marriage bond. She would bean my
name. and hate me for the giving of IL:
would go on hating me. l thought, to all
eternity; but she would never take her
freedom back again, save at a dead
mans hands.
1t was thus that each fresh scanning
of the prison wall hat shut me in this
! dungeon of dishonor fetched me once
and again to his n sa~!ly-port of
death. And when it came to this: that
| had searched in vain for other out
let, you will not think it strange that L
sat down in spirit at this postern to
see if l might open it with my open
hands.
1t was not love of life that made me
hesitate. AT two-score years he who
has lived at all has lived his best: n
If he live beyond the turning point of
of younger men to linger yet a little
longer on the stage which once was
his and now is theirs.
No. 1t was not any love of life for
life's own SAX that held me back.
Twas rather that the Ireton blood
Is linked up With that thing we call a
conscience, a heritage from those sim
ple-hearted ancestors to whom the sui
eide was a soul accurst-a soul i'm
penitent, whose very outer husk of
flesh and bones they used to bury at
the crossing OF the ways, with a sharp
ened stake to pinion it.
Twas this ancestral conscience made
me cowardly; INC when the sight of
my fathers sword-Darius had res
cued and restored it TO its place upon
the OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES set me
thinking OF the Israelitish king. II
how, when all vas lost, he fell upo
his blade and died, this horror of the
suicide came to give me pause.
Besides. that way to right the dou-
BILE wrong was not so clear as 1t might
seem. AS matters stood. my living for
the present was Margery's best safe
guard. Till she became my widow and
my heir-at-law, the mercenary baronet
would play his cards to win her hon
orably. I doubted not he'd make hot
1--WE I " lACA Dol III oiiI q
wife, and was not yet a widow, he'd
keep his passion decently in bounds, if
only for the better comprising of his
end.
But from this horn of the dilemma
I slipped to fall pom the other. If my
her safety for the time. 1t was an Of
fering of idol-meats upon the altar Of
my dear lads friendship. What would
he think of me? How could 1 go
about to make it plain that I had
robbed him for his own honor's sake?
that it was not I but fate that was
to blame?
like deep-sea plummets where no bot
tom is. l saw the way no farther on
than this; that I must go straightway
10 Jennifer and tell him all. Beyond
that point the darkness was Egyptian.
and 1 could only hope hat tricky fate
make it plain to Richard, and to my
' dear lady, that love, and not base
treachery, had set me on to do as I
had done.
In some such dismal grindings of the
mill of thought the hours of waiting
were outworn at length; n when the
sun was dipping to the mountains in
the west l rose and washed me in the
brook, n afterward constrained my
self to eat what Tomas had prepared
for me.
The sunset glow was fading in the
upper air, and underneath the canopy
Of leaves the wood was darkening on
to twilight, when I made ready to be
gone. Because l thought I might have
need of it before the night was done.
[ buckled on the heirloom sword; and
telling Tomas and the other blacks for
their w safety to keep an alarm
guard waking through the night, 1
sailed forth upon my errand.
I've wished a thousand times. as 1
memories down in Grabbed black on
white, that I could c%onjure up for you
some speaking picture of this scene
primeval in which the story moves.
True, it's hills and valleys are the
same; the river keeps it's course; and
in the west the mountain skyline is
unchanged. But here similituoe is at
forest into shapes and fringes where
once 1t was an ample mantle scanned
only by the rivers. n frayed here and
there at distant intervals by the set
tiers ak.
Beneath this mantle lay a world I'M
like the world you know. Plunged in
Its furtive depths you felt the spell of
terry of the hoary wood. age-old,
stepped in the nepenthe of the CEN
turtles. In brightest summer day,
which. in these forest aisles. became a
! misty green t~ranslucence, the silence,
the v~astness, the solitude laid each a
finger on you, bidding you go softly all
the way. But in the twilight hour the
real held still more aloof. and all the
shadows bristled with dim fantastic
shapes to awe and alright the alien
born.
1 was not alien-born. From earliest
childhood l had known and loved these
forest %solitudes. Yet now, as when I
was a little lad, the twilight shadows
awed me. Here it was a gnarled and
twisted tree-trunk SO like a crouching
panther hat 1 sprang aside and had
the steel half out before the clearer
vision came. There 1t was the figure of
a man gliding stealthily from tree to
tree. it seemed; keeping ven pace with
me as If with sinister intent.
I pushed on faster. drawing the
sword to keep me better company,
though inwardly I scoffed and jeered at
this new twittering Of the nerves. What
threat was there for me in silent
+, shadows in the wood? The dogs
had to fear were bred in British ken
nels. and there was never any lack of
! clamor when they were beating up a
cover.