Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1908-06-12
CHAPTER ",

CHAPTER ".
In the Rue de Rivoli there was little
stone fruit shop. The street was short,
narrow, crooked and i'll paved-a cleft in
| Saint Pierre's terrace work. Just across
| from the vault-like entrance to the shop,
the white, SCARED cliff arose to another
| flight Of the city. Between the shop and
! the living rooms behind there was little
court, shaded by mango-trees. Dwarfed
| banana shrubs fourished in the shade Of
the mangoes, and singing birds were Gag
| ed in the lower foliage. Since the sun
| could find no entrance, the shop was dark
| as a cave, and as cool. One window,
| if an aperture like the clean wound OF
a thirteen-inch gun could be called Win
| dow, opened to the north and from it,
| by the grace of a crook in the Rue de
| Rivoli, might be seen the mighty caliber-
ed cone of Pelee.
Pere Rabeaut's fruit was very good
and some of it was very cheap. The ser
vice was much as you made it, for if you
were known you were permitted to help
Yourself. In this world there was no
one of station too lofty to go to Pierre
Rabeaut's; you would meet no one there
to whom it was not a privilege to say
'Bon jour-"
Come and see my BIRDS" the crafty
Rabeaut would say, if he approved OF
you.
"Where do you live?" you might ask,
being stranger. -.
"In the coolest howell of Saint Pierre"
was the invariable answer.
| And presently, if you were truly alive,
YOU would find yourself in the little stone
shop, listening to the birds. In due
course Soronia would appear in the shad-
owv doorway and it would seem that the
| bird songs were hushed as she crossed the
court.
| If the little stone shop were transplant
| ed In New York, artists would hnd 1t
and have difficulty in getting in and out
| for the crowd O. nights. Thlther Con-
| stable and Breen made their way on this
burning morning which Mrs. Stansbury
darkened with her decision. The pair sat
down in the cherished GOODNESS, Constable
| at the little window, so that he could
look at the mountain.
s.Rreen. I dare not leave them here for
forty-eight hours, until the Panther
comes" Constable said.
'Do you really think Pelee can't hold
out that long!
| Constable shook his head impatiently.
| "T,ro not a monomaniac-at least, not yet
| proan - he said, and his voice suggested
tba world of pent savagery in his BRAIN
oThe ways of volcanoes are past the pre-
visions of men. I do not say that Pelee
! will blow his head off this week, or this
| millennium. 1 say I'm afraid for this
,irI saw there are vaults Of explo-
| siyes in that monster the smallest OF
ubicb could make this city look like
| lener's corpse upon the oeach. say
| that the internal fires are burning high;
that they are already lingering the vital
cap: that Pelee sprung leak last night,
| end that the same force which lifted TINS
cheerful archipelago from the depths OF
| the sea is pressing against the leak at
| This instant. l say that Vesuvlus warned
before he broke; that Krakatoa warned
| o,d then struck: that down the ages these
sofatv valves scattered over the face OF
| 9th have trembled before giving way
police is trembling now, and there Is
roman here whose safety is-lmportant
~ me- She is two miles away this mo-
| r,on+ and am as powerless as a man in
a street fight, with his lady's arms about
him. What shall I do"
"Peter, there is short cut Breen
| said.
.sTell me J" Constable urged.
"Are you Jealous and strong-souled!'
"Try me-"
At this juncture Soronia entered the
shop from the little court OF the song
birds, filling the eyes of the Americans.
| A dark, s,rdent, alluring face; flesh IKE
dull gold, made wonderful by the ialntest
t;-+s of ripe fruit; eyes that could melt
and burn and laugh; fragile figure, but
radiantlv abloom, and as worthily draped
as young palm in vine richly blossom
inc Such. vaguely, was Soronia. She
made one think of strange, regal flower,
an experiment of Nature, wrought IN the
most sumptuous shadow of a tropic gar