Evening journal. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1907-1913, 1907-11-13
THE GUARDSMAN AT
The DEAD line
BY EDGAR WHITE


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In the kingdom of Lights and
Shadows there blossomed a queen
with a fair young face and bright
blue eyes. Hard by the gilt and white
throne stood tall, brown knight,
brave and honest, with dark, unseeing
eyes. Across the hall of state, with
fine gold lace and 'broidery, was a
courtier with soft, white face and
large, moist lips beneath waxed mus
tache. At times he bowed and smiled,
the fair queen, as become loyal sub,
ject.
In the background of the gilt and
white throne was horrid creature,
dressed in sables, with a long, glitter
ing halberd which threw blood-red re-
Elections from the footlights. He was
the villain of the play, the tireless
weaver Of evil. the sinister chessman
who moved all his pieces down to hell.
In the last act he was hurled from the
ramparts amid terrific thunder claps,
red light and general rejoicing.
The others were lords, men-at-arms,
friars, trio of somber witches, a
masked executioner and some genteel
ladies-in-waiting, all forming a. dark
blue sky for the four great stars to
shine upon.
In the tinsel kingdom the handsome
courtier was the hero, the man whom
the audience cheered and who sub
dued the uncanny one in sable gar
ments, winning the love of the beauti-
full girl queen by his valor
Off the stage, at Gods holy altar,
the brown knight with the honest face
and unseeing eyes had sworn to cher
ish and protect her as long as life
were his.
AS the show journeyed from town to
town the queen and the courtier re-
hearsed their parts with singular in
dustry for those who knew their lines
so well. "Mephisto"-who wasn't a
bad sort when he stepped out of the
land of Lights and Shadows-saw this,
and his SCARED and haggard face be-
came gloomier yet. He did not like to
talk about it to the brown knight, be-
cause the business of stirring up
trouble was confined strictly to the
hours in which he wore the sable
cloak and carried the glittering nal
berd. But he remembered the dark
days when the ruthless artist, Disease,
was painting those dreadful marks
upon his face, and when all the world
had stepped aside save the brown
knight, who had ministered to him till
he was well and strong again He
brought back a stalwart frame, but
face so hideous that children ran from
the sight of it. Still, in the economy
of the universe, there is nothing
wasted, and the knight took up the
man he had befriended and cast him
for, a part where his looks added
strength to the character
1t was in the land of the magnolia
and the date palm, where passions
irrepressible fires rise stronger and
higher than the fragrance of the trees
and the flowers, that the final act was
played. The knight was not there, but
the man in sable was, and when he
gently reproached the queen, whom
he had taken unawares, the eourtier's
white face grew whittier still, and he
plunged dagger into the breast of
the unlimited guest and then, craven
like, fed the scene.
The queen, with eyes now open
wide, knelt on the greensward beside
the man who had come just in time
and implored one word OF mercy and
of forgiveness. At this the man looked
up at the girlish face bending over
him and something like a sweep of
sunlight seemed to brighten the marks
and the wrinkles.
"The knight" he whispered, "be
good to him; he does not know"
This was his absolution, and when
she received it at his hands she bent
her golden head still lower and the
warm coral lips of the queen rested
for a moment on those of the one
whose blood had saved her honor.
When they buried him next day,
thinking him the victim of proving
thugs Of the forest, the members of
the troupe noted it as a curious cir
cumstance that somehow the features
no longer looked fierce and coarse, but
were full of kindly curves, and that
the great, wide mouth which used to
utter such awful anathemas at the
brink of the birthstone abyss was
fashioned into a pleasant smile.