The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1908-09-17
'e.Pelee speaks again. .. Ugh, get

Constable's Irritation against the entire
tribe of editorial opinion breeders must
have found an instant vent at last. NJ.
AfOndet was chucked like large soft
bundle into the seat of his carriage and
the door slammed forcibly corking the
walls of his wrath. In any of the red
blooded zones. n stranger who performed
such antics at the expense of a portly
and respected citizen would have encoun-
tered a quietus quick and blasting. but
the people of Martinique are not swift to
anger nor forward at reprisals.
Come Constable yelled, in a voice
which jerked up his hearers. "Who has
use for my offer? Who goes to Fort De
Francet"
few came forward, perhaps a dozen
in all, out of the fifty or sixty who had
listened. Half in anger half in admira-
ton, which he did not seek to understand,
he ran his eye last time over the dusty,
hagsard, stified crowd which he had failed
to move.
From their eyes, sullen, startled and
pitiful, he glanced beyond to the place
where old Vulcan lay, muttering his ag-
onies. The sight completed the circuit of
rending voltage, made him think of Lara
With furious zeal he grappled the work
at hand, forced his way out of the crowd,
crossed the Roxelane and hurried toward
the Hotel des Palms. His physical en-
ergy was imperious, but the numbneSs of
his scalp was pregnant warning against
the perils of heat. The city was silent
enough TO act like a vast sounding board.
Voices reached him from far behind, from
the harbor front to the left, from shut
shops and houses everywhere. At the
hotel, after much difficulty, he procured
guides and a small outfit for the journey
TO the summit of the mountain. 1t was
after midday when the party rode into
Morne Rouge. The ash-hung valley was
behind, and Constable drank deeply of
the clean east wind from the Atlantic.
There was q rush of bitterness, too, be-
cause Lara was not sharing the priceless
volumes Of sun-lit vitality All the i'm
petus of his mad enterprise was needed
now TO turn the point of bereavement,
and force it into the background again
The party pushed through Ajoupa Bouil-
lion to the gorge of the Falase, the north
ward bank of which marked the chosen
trail to the summit.
And now they moved upward in the
midst of the old glory of Martinique. The
brisk Trades blowing evenly in the heights
wiped the eastern slope Of the mountain
clear of stone-dust and whipped the blast
of sulphur down into the valley toward
the shore. Green lakes of cane filed the
valleys behind, and groves of cocoa-palsns.
so distant and so orderly that they looked
like a city garden set with hen and
chickens.
Northward. through the riffs, glistened
the sea, steel-blue and cool. Before them
arose the huge, green-clad mass of the
mountain, its corona dim with smoke and
dashed by storm. Down in the southwest
lay the CHASTITY pail, the hidden, tortured
city, tranced under the cobra-head of the
monster and already laved in its poison.
The trail became very steep at two
thousand feet, and this fact, together with
the back-thresh of the summit disturb
ance, forced Constable TO abandon the
animals. 1t transpired that four OF the
seven natives felt it their duty. at this
point, to stay behind with the mules. a
little later, when the growing from the
prone upturned face of the great beast
suddenly arose to a roar that twisted the
flesh and outraged the senses of man.
the American looked back and found that
only one native was faltering behind, in
stead of three.
Fascination for the dying Thing took
hold of him now, and drew him on. Con
stable was conscious of no fear for. his
| life, but of fixed terror lest he should
prove physically unable to go on to the
| end lie found himself tearing UP a
| handkerchief and stuffing the shreds in
his ears. to deaden the horrid vibrations
| With the linen remaining, he filed his
mouth. shutting his jaws together upon It,
as the wheels of a wagon are blocked on
an incline.
| The titanic disorder placated his own
| He revealed in it, unconscious of passing
| time. lie did not realize that he was
alone, but knew well from the contour
| of the slope, learned intimately in past
visits. that he was nearing the Lac dies
Palmists, which marked the summit level
Yet changes, violent changes, were every
where evidenced. The shoulder of the
mountain was smeared with a crust oil
ash aud scanned with fresh scars. The
crust was made by the dry whirling wind.
| playing upon the paste formed of stone
dust and condensed steam The clicking
whir like the clap of wings. heard al
intervals, accounted for the scars. Bomb,
of rock were being hurled from the great
| tubes
That he was in the range Of a rakins
volcano fire did not impress this an
clinging TO the beard of q giant. Up
knees and hands, he crawled-up over tn.
throbbing chin TO the black pounded lii
of the monster. Out of the old lake cole,
the furious tower of steam and rock-dus
| which mushroomed in high air, like tn
primal nebulae from which the world
| were made. Pockets of gas exploded il
the heights, rending the periphery as tn
veil of the temple was rent. Only th
to see, but sounds not meant for the ear
of man, sounds which seemed to saw hi
skull in twain-the laundering engine
of the planet.
The rocky rim of the lake was hot t,
his hands and knees, but he could not g
back. A thought in his brain held hin
there with thrilling bands-the. sam
thought which Hayden Breen evolved a
he stood at the edge of the Brooklyi
pier But il was only play
thing of mind-the yagary of altitude an
immensely. did ever a man clog a liy
volcano? Did ever suicidal genius con
ceive of corrupting such majesty of fore
with his pygmy purpose" Th
irreverent query righted the balances.
There he lay, sprawled at the edge o
the universal mystery, at the secret en-
trance to the chamber of earth's dyna
mos. The edge of the pit shook with tn
frightful work going on below. yet he wa
not slain. The torrent burst past an
upward, clean as a missing bullet. Th
bombs of rock canted out from shee
weight and fell behind him. That whic
he reehnded-although his eyes say
only the gray laundering cataclysm-wa
never before imagined in the mind o
man.
The gray blackened. The roar dwin
died, and his senses reele1. With a rus
of saliva the linen dropped from his ope
mouth Constable was sure that ther
was a gaping cleft in his skull, for h
could feel the air blowing in and out, col
and colder. He tried to lift has hand