The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1908-10-24

was SeVeH-lnIrCy, anu Tue ulSCduCS was
two miles to the plantation house. At
eight, or soon afterward, he would be
there-eight on the morning of Ascension
Day; at nine, in the launch again, speed
ing out to the smile Of the bride!
Twenty times a minute she required to
him as he walked. There was no waning
nor wearing-save wearing brighter,
perhaps-of the images she had put in
his mind. The night had brought him
palaces and gardens and treasure houses !;
everywhere he turned, new riches broke
upon him. That her face had lain be-
tween his hands; that his hands had
brought that face to his own: that her
whispers, kisses, condolences, her prayers
and passions and coming years, all found
their center and origin in himself, like
bright doves that had a cote within his
heart-these thoughts lifted the poor man
to such heights of praise and blessedness
that he seemed to shatter the dome of hui
man limitations, and emerge crown and
shoulders into the illimitable ether.
The road up the morne stretched blind
ing white before him. Painting and spent
not a little, he strobe upward through
the vicious pressure of heat, holding his
helmet free from his head, that the air
might circulate under the rim. At length,
upon the crest of the morne, he perceived
the gables of the plantation house, above
the palms and mangoes, gold-brown in the
dazzling haze.
Pelee roared. Sullen and dreadful out
Of the silence voiced the monster, reused
to his labor afresh. The American began
to run, glancing back at the darkening
north. The crisis was not
passed in favor of peace. The holiday
was darkened. The Madame would fill
with refugees now, and the road to Fort
de France turn black with flight. These
were his thoughts as he ran.
The lights of the day burned out one
by one. The crust of the earth stretched
to a cracking tension. The air was beet
ling with strange conclusions. In the
clutch of realization, he turned one shin
ing look toward the sea. Decorations &C
cumulated into the crash of thousand
navies.
twenty yards away, stood the mother of
Lara, her eyes fascinated, lost in the
north. At the steps he fell, caught her
skirt, her waist, in his hands. Across the
lawn, through the roaring black, he bore
her, brushing her fingers and her fallen
hair from his face. He reached the curb.
ing of the old we'll with his burden, crawl
ed over, and grasped the rusty chain. L.
candescent tongues Tapped the cistern's
raised coping, and running streams of red
dust filtered down.
1t was eight in the morning of Ascen-
sion Day. La Montague Pelee was CIV
ing birth to Death.
CHAPTER XIV.
When the launch entered the denser
cloud and faded from her sight, Miss
Stansbury retired to the cabin. Over all
her thoughts of the unhallowed parting
from her mother the night before, ond the
clean, valorous act of her lover now, hung
the defined terror lest Pelee should inter-
vene. She heard Macready's step at the
door; the calm voice of an officer On the
bridge; the morning bells.
The pale winding sheet was unwrappcd
from the beauty of morning. Through a
portfolio she saw the rose and gold on
the far, dim hills. Her eyes smarted from
WEAKNESS, but her mind, like an auto
matte thing, swept around the great cir
cle-from the ship to the city, to the
house beyond the morne and back again.
She saw him in the launch, in the midst
of native groups on the shore, in the
plantation house, begging her mother to
listen, importuning Uncle joey to take
her to Fort de France, returning through
the streets with people following-the
crowded launch, and then the joy of emp
ty arms filled. But sometimes Pelee
would burst into the deepening channel of
thoughts, effacing the whole, and leaving
her, a shrieking. dishevelled creature, in
the midst of chaos which would not an
swer. She went on deck. Laird, the first
officer, invited her to ascend the bridge.
He was scrutinzing through the glass a
blotch Of smoke on the city 'front.' "Whar
do you make of it, Miss Stansbury?' he
asked
The lenses brought to her a nucleus of
red in the black bank. The rest of Saint
Pierre was gray doll settlement, set in
the shelter of little gray hills. She
could see the riven and castellated crest
of Pelee, weaving his black ribbon. It
was all small, silent and unearthly.
That's fire on the shore" she said.
Exactly" said Laird.
Shortly afterward the trumpetings of
the monster began. The harbor grew
yellowish-black. The shore crawled deep
er into the shroud, and was lost alto
gether. The water took on a foul look.
as if the bed of the sea were churned with
some beastly passion. The anchor chain
drew taut, mysteriously strained, and
banged tattoo against the steel-bound
eye. Blue Peter, dropping at the fore
mast, livened suddenly into a spasm of
writhing, like hooked lizard. The black,
quiyering columns of smoke from the fun
nels were famed down upon the deck.
adding SCOT to the white smear from the