Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1908-07-02
| 'Pelee speaks again, Ugh, get in

tribe of editorial opinion breeders must
have found an instant vent at last. VI.
Mondet was chucked like a 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, a 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
France?'
A 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,
haggard, stifed 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 grappIed 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 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 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 Falaise, the north
| ward bank of which marked the chosen
| trail to the summit.
And now they moved upward in the
HlluSI VI LLS Olu SlOls VI Lie
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 filled the
valleys behind, and groves of cocoa-palms,
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
Law 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 a fixed terror lest he should
prove physically unable to go on to the
end. He found himself tearing up a
handkerchief and stufing the shreds in
his ears. to deaden the horrid vibrations.
| With the linen remaining, he filled 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 revelled in it, unconscious of passing
time. He did not realize that he was
alone, but knew we'll from the contour
of the slope, learned intimately in past
visits, that he was nearing the Lac des
| Palmists, which marked the summit level
Yet changes, violent changes were every
where evidenced. The shoulder of the
mountain was smeared with a crust of
ash and scanned with fresh scars The
crust was made by the dry whirling winds
playing upon the paste formed of stone
dust and condensed steam. The clicking
whir, like the clap of wings, heard at
intervals, accounted for the scars. Bombs
of rock were being hurled from the great
tubes.
That he was in the range of a raking
volcano fire did not impress this ant
clinging to the beard of a giant. Up,
knees and hands, he crawled-up over the
throbbing chin, to the black pounded lip
| of the monster. Out of the old lake coiled
the furious tower of steam and rock-dust
which mushroomed in nigh air, like the
! primal nebule from which the worlds
were made. Pockets of gas exploded in
| the heights, rending the periphery as the
veil of the temple was rent. Only this
to see, but sounds not meant for the ears
of man, sounds which seemed to saw his
skull in twain-the laundering engines
of the planet
The rocky rim of the lake was hot to
his hands and knees, but he could not go
| back. A thought in his brain held him
there with thrilling bands-the same
thought which Hayden Breen evolved as
he stood at the edge of the Brooklyn
pier. But it was only a play
thing of mind-the vagary of altitude and
immensely. Did ever a man clog a live
| volcano? Did ever suicidal genius con-
ceive of corrupting such majesty of force
| with his pygmy purposeW The
irreverent query righted the balances.
There he lay, sprawled at the edge of
| the universal mystery, at the secret en-
trance to the chamber of earth's dyna-
mos. The edge of the pit shook with the
| frightful work going on below, yet he was
not slain. The torrent burst past and
upward, clean as missing bullet. The
| bombs of rock canted out from sheer
weight and fell behind him. That which
he preehnded-although his eyes saw
only the gray laundering cataclysm-was
never before imagined in the mind of
| man.
The gray blackened. The roar dwin-
| died, and his senses reeled. With a rush
of saliva the linen dropped from his open
mouth. Constable was sure that there
was a gaping cleft in his skull, for he