The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-08-01

nor whittier his feet were carrying him;
he knew only that he had passed far
beyond the town limits and was travers-
ing a lonely region by road that bore
no resemblance to the one by which
he had left the village. In brief, he
was "Iost'' Realizing the mischance,
he smiled; central New York is not a
region of perils, nor does one long re-
main lost in it. He turned about and
went back the way that he had come.
Before he had gone far, he observed
that the landscape was growing more
distinctly visible-was Frightening. Ev-
erything was suffused with a soft, red
glow in which he saw his shadow pro-
! jected in the road before him. 'sThe
moon is rising" he said to himself.
! Then he remembered that it was the
| time of the new moon. and if that
| tricksy orb was in one of its stages of
visibility it had set long before. He
stopped and faced about, seeking the
source of the rapidly broadening light.
| As he did so, his shadow turned and
lay along the road in front of him as
! before. The light still came from be-
hind him. That was disquieting; he
could not understand. Again he turned,
and again. facing successfully to every
| point of the horizon. Always the shad-
ow was before-always the light be,
hind, ga still and awful red. -
Holt was inexpressibly surprised
'dumbfounded is the word that he
used in telling it-yet seems to have
retained a certain intelligent curiosity.
To test the intensity of the light whose
nature and cause he could not deter
mine, he took out his watch to see if
he could make out the figures on the
dial. They were distinctly visible, and
| the hands indicated the hour of eleven
clock and twenty-five minutes. At
that moment the mysterious illumina-
tion suddenly fared to an intenser, an
almost binding, splendor, flushing the
entire sky. extinguishing the stars and
! throwing the monstrous shadow of him.
self athwart the whole landscape In
that unearthly illumination he saw.
near him, but apparently in the air
at a considerable elevation, the figure
of his wife, clad in her night clothing
and holding to her breast the figure
of his child. Her eyes were fixed upon
his with an expression which he pro-
fessed himself unable to name or de-
scribe, further than that it was F'not
of this life.''
The flare was momentary, followed
by black darkness, in which, however,
the apparition still showed white ana
| motionless; then by insensble degrees
| it faded and vanished, like a bright
| image on the retina after the closing
of the eyes. A popularity of the ap-
partition, hardly noted at the time, but
afterward recalled, was that it showed
only the upper half of the woman s
| figure: nothing was seen below the
waist.
The sudden darkness was compare
tive, not absolute, for gradually all
objects of his environment became
again visible. The persisting but ever
fading light served to guide his shak-
ing legs from the spot, in what direc-
ton he neither knew nor cared
In the dawn of the morning Holt
found himself entering the village at a
point opposite to that at which he had
left it. He soon arrived at the house
of his brother, who hardly knew him.
He was wild-eyed, haggard and gray
as rat. Almost incoherently, he relat-
ed his night S experience
$50 to bed my poor fellow said
his brother, and-wait We shall hear
more of this. -
An hour later came the predestineo
telegram Holt IS dwelling in one of the
sprburbs Of Chicago had been destroyed
by fire. Her escape cut off by the
flames, his wife had appeared at an
upper window, her child in her arms.
There she stood. motionless, apparent
| ly dazed. Just as the fremen arrived
with ladder, the roof fell in with a
loud crash, followed by a binding
light, and she was seen no more. The
moment of this eliminating horror was
eleven o. clock and twenty-five minutes,
| standard time.
An Arrest.
Having murdered his brother-in law,
IOrrIn Mannering was fugitive from